I see many posts with great enthusiasm; however, they often show typical bias for a pet project. I too invest in NEM, but I am also a programmer and looking at all the great things to DO with NEM. I have great optimism for the price of XEM as time passes.
Here is the part many writers forget when making comparisons. Suppose you have a bank (bitcoin), and someone starts a company for helping a bank run its business (Microsoft), and someone else start a software company to manage accounting for the bank (Quickbooks) running on the business software (Microsoft). You never saw Microsoft (NEM) talking about how their market cap was going to make the bank (bitcoin) worthless, or how Quickbooks (Mosaics application) were going to be bigger than Microsoft (NEM). Those comparisons are not meaningful to the products, companies or applications. The only thing that matters is will the specific “company or application” be profitable. Then identify, if and how the other products or services impact the bottom line of your profit or success.
Comparing XEM to bitcoin market cap as “my dog is bigger than your dog” for store of value just does not work. Bitcoin is a proven store of value to $70Billion secure market cap. This just means, someone has not hacked the software to that value. If XEM market cap exceeds bitcoin it just means it is “secure” as a store of value to that level. What does matter, is the technology of the coin for store of value. Bitcoin is specifically designed to store value as a decentralized, immutable, non inflationary coin. This means the price is supply and demand and currently easily manipulated by individuals with enough capital to swing the market. However, bitcoin gains worldwide adoption daily, reducing the effect of individuals. Keep in mind the “big investors” institutions and hedge funds have not yet entered the market, so major swings are ahead. These people want to “HOLD” their money for the long term. They want to put away labor union money today and be able to pay it out 10 years from now. XEM on the other hand is NOT fully decentralized, unless ALL source is available (C++ version looks like some code is not exposed). In addition, XEM is “designed” to be used and circulated for maximum value. You do not “store value” in a coin you have to circulate. That said, I believe XEM is a good investment but highly speculative at the moment. As example in the past few days XEM dropped 20% and went up 20%. This looks like even but in fact is a loss. That is because 20% of a smaller number going up is less than 20% of a larger number going down. No matter what the market cap of either company the bank (bitcoin) or the business software (NEM), neither destroy the other, but can benefit each other.
NEM needs to be fully decentralized to EVER expect to catch the high dollar per coin of bitcoin. As long as “anyone” can change the rules or hide details, HUGE investors will be very skeptical about investing large sums. That does not mean the applications and use of NEM will not exceed the market cap of bitcoin. It means you will not have large investors but could have incredible adoption for usage or the “technology”.
To claim bitcoin is useless old technology with high fees, because it cannot do what the NEM blockchain can do is a useless comparison. I guarantee I can do ANY application you can do with NEM on the bitcoin blockchain with just a few lines of code using the current blockchain technology. The fee for my last bitcoin transaction for $20 was $0.04 and confirmed in 10 minutes due to segwit. I see NEM as a sidechain application to bitcoin for speed, fees and ease of use, not as a competitor to “destroy” bitcoin as a store of value because my “market cap” is higher.
The value of NEM is the technology (Microsoft) of the industry to bring it all together and let “everyone” develop new exciting applications. I do not need it fully decentralized, if I can move my funds through it quick enough not to worry about code changes or hidden algorithms. As stated before, I would never use XEM for large store of value, unless I knew for a fact, all code was open source and not under central control. Also the distribution of the coin should NEVER have major individual holders and especially holders who could direct the coding of NEM.
NEM has value because of the partnerships with exchanges, wallets, ICOs on NEM and more. As this matures you will see XEM price increase. Also when XEM has its own exchange it will “decouple” from bitcoin. Now you can make mosaics to transfer around bitcoin, ethereum and any other “out of this world coin today”, via the NEM technology. Do not get hung up on the “market cap” of XEM compared to anyone else. Do you really believe the bank (bitcoin) went out of business because Microsoft (NEM) started up?
I am excited about the investment in XEM, not for the “store of value”, but for the technology to decouple from bitcoin and run a completely separate environment while allowing management of “other” environments.
There are six things NEM needs to do for wide adoption and attract real “big” investments rising XEM price :
- NEM must be FULLY decentralized with open source code.
- Funds must be distributed beyond any major holder.
- There must be incentive for independent NIS nodes with ports open to handle the increased volume.
- Partnerships for exchanges, wallets, banks and the other applications on NEM needs to be flawless so funds can be exchanged between fiat and “all” other coins.
- The website needs to be easily usable by the “NEW” user. And I mean users who cannot figure out how to send email. There needs to be three fast start sections on wallet (setup and use as a coin), the blockchain (NIS setup and use), and applications (enhanced wallet functions). This will lead to in depth sections on the three sections. Technical needs to be clearly identified between setup, usage, and development. This will mean customer support on several levels and should be paid for out of NEM funds. If the website is good and coordinated, which they are now doing a great job putting together, the “users” at all levels will do the videos and marketing as the company grows.
- Marketing needs to focus on the NEM technology and integrations and NOT on the price of XEM.