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Core developer Lior Yaffe introduces the Nxt core features and design, it's API and the future, Nxt 2.0, ARDOR.

Getting Started

BCNext, initiator of Nxt, building on Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s ideas, sketched out his vision of a distributed cryptographically secure blockchain platform, comprising not only a digital payment system, but a wide range of built-in services and the capacity for third party developers to add their own applications, all fully secured by the Nxt Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol.

Nxt is a Blockchain 2.0 Software.

Blockchains can be useful in various applications, facing global audience and supporting company internal infrastructure. A blockchain is a distributed database, a copy of the blockchain is stored on each node in a peer-to-peer network. This extreme redundancy can be duely considered inefficient, but please stay with me for a couple of minutes of blockchain theory.

As each node validates all transactions recorded into the blockchain and as past transactions cannot be rolled back or tampered with like in traditional RDBMS, this redundancy makes the blockchain *immutable*, and that is a very important value proposition of blockchains. Immutability of data is something traditional databases cannot provide.

Nxt has built a whole ecosystem around secure and transparent data handling. You can start your own services, create currencies, issue assets and trade them, use a built-in marketplace, data cloud and much more!

The Nxt Reference Software (NRS)

The NRS server is a Java application with two interfaces: one for communicating with other servers through the Internet (forming the network of nodes), and one for responding to requests from clients through its extensive API.

The NRS can run on small devices like a laptop computer or even a Raspberry Pi without exhausting it, and Nxt’s unique algorithm does not depend on any implementation of the coin age concept used by other PoS cryptocurrencies – it is resistant to the so-called Nothing at Stake attacks.

Smart Transactions

Nxt and Ardor use ‘smart transactions’ not ‘smart contracts’.

By leveraging these primitive Nxt transaction types, Nxt can be seen as an agile, base-layer protocol upon which developers without much prior knowledge in the cryptocurrency field can create a limitless range of secure decentralised services, applications, and even other currencies.

With smart transactions Nxt transactions do not require any script processing or transaction input/output processing on the part of network nodes; scripts are already embedded, the code which is executed is actual software that runs in the node server.

When a user wants to express their opinion at a poll, purchase an item in the marketplace or sell some stocks, the transaction the user submits contains only the parameters necessary for the transaction, and the ID of the functionality they want to use, keeping the consensus of the majority of the nodes as the absolute proof that the output, saved in the next block, is the genuine result of that transaction.

Another difference is that a computer application has tenfold more power and possibilities, compared to a script interpreted in a virtual machine, as it is the case with the “smart contracts” used in f.x. the Ethereum blockchain.

“Nxt is indeed the most amazing decentralised tool for businesses that knows no borders, no central authorities, no risks of fraud. With its API and hundreds of endpoint calls, Nxt is an easy tool to integrate with other software solutions, thus being the perfect solution for each business need.”

~Roberto Capodieci, DeBuNe

Blockchain As A Service

With the upcoming release of ARDOR (Nxt 2.0), planned for testnet in Q1 2017 and public mainnet in Q3 2017, scalable customisable childchains with their own unique transactional tokens, crosschain transactions, secured by an existing network of nodes, will become available to anyone.

Developers working with the Nxt API can port their new or existing Nxt projects to the new ARDOR ledger, IF they want to do so, after it has been launched.

"We have chosen Nxt for the technology it provides, it’s known stability and it’s technological roadmap. We hope to be part of the Nxt ecosystem for a long time to come.”

~ lobos, the Janus project

Nxt Plugin system

Nxt Plugins are installed locally.

The plug-in system is an example of the philosophy of flexibility and versatility that is at the heart of Nxt. Nxt Plugins enables third-party software developers to add functionality to the Nxt (NRS) client.

Nxt NRS Plugins

Beginners guide

Beer, Betting and the Nxt Blockchain

By lurker10 | 31/08/2016 | 0 Comments

Suppose you have a circle of friends who you meet with in a sports bar to drink beer, watch sports and make bets. You can make bets on the Nxt Blockchain and have a basic Python app automate it for you. In my first article I introduced basics of a blockchain. As we learned, the most …

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Lottery on the Nxt Blockchain in Golang

By lurker10 | 26/08/2016 | 0 Comments

In my first article I introduced blockchain theory, what it can do for your software project and the basics of interacting with the Nxt blockchain in PHP. Today I am going to present a small Lottery program written in Go. Pre-requisites: Golang (tested with Go 1.6.2) NRS 1.10.1 (https://bitbucket.org/JeanLucPicard/nxt/downloads/) The program is fully functional and runs a …

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Programming the Nxt Blockchain for fun and profit

By lurker10 | 22/08/2016 | 0 Comments

Blockchains can be useful in various applications, facing global audience and supporting company internal infrastructure. A blockchain is a distributed database, a copy of the blockchain is stored on each node in a peer-to-peer network. This extreme redundancy can be duely considered inefficient, but please stay with me for a couple of minutes of blockchain theory. …

Read more

Lior Yaffe: Advanced Concepts in Blockchain Design

By apenzl | 05/08/2016 | 0 Comments

Lior Yaffe explains some design concepts that have made it into NXT and the upcoming Ardor platform, such as: Proof of Stake, Brain Wallets, Forging, Prunable data, The Ardor platform, Smart transactions and hard fork management. The lecture took place on 27.7.2016, at Campus Tel Aviv. Slides: https://bitcoil.co.il/files/Advanced…. http://prezi.com/x8jyard5-h51/ Event page: http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-il/even…

Resources

You can blog about your progress on Nxter.org.

Don't forget to tell us about your apps, plugins and projects, so we can help you spread the word!