A breakdown of the smart contracts that run the Nym token economics

Smart contracts on the Nyx blockchain power Nym token economics, the engine of the Nym mixnet and the future private internet. Read on to…

Author: Nym

July 12, 20235 mins read

Smart contracts on the Nyx blockchain power Nym token economics, the engine of the Nym mixnet and the future private internet. Read on to learn how they work...

Translations: Русский//Français // Português//日本語

Nym is an open source, decentralised mixnet designed to protect the privacy of people and the d/apps, digital services, and infrastructure they use. Nym is incentivised through a token, to ensure decentralisation and the scale needed to make the mixnet work.

People all across the world contribute to the privacy system by operating and staking on mix nodes that provide privacy. The native NYM utility token is used to measure reputation and reward mix nodes, as well as a means to pay for accessing and using the mixnet.

Crucial to the Nym mission is openness and transparency, so this post will provide a clear overview of the smart contracts that determine the token economics of Nym.

The Nym mixnet is facilitated by a pair of smart contracts running on a blockchain called Nyx. The Nyx blockchain, a layer-1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK, uses CosmWasm smart contracts and is written in Rust, compiled to WebAssembly. Just like Ethereum addresses begin with ‘0x’, Nyx addresses begin with ‘n’.

Below is the quick view on Nym token economic dynamics. Scroll down for more about the smart contracts that the Nym mixnet is built on.

Nym token economic dynamics at a glance:

The total supply of NYM tokens is 1 billion. These are released over time through a reward and vesting schedule. At the time of writing, the circulating supply is 473m. The API for the NYM token supply is here.
There is a ‘mixmining’ reserve of 250m NYMs, releasing rewards to mix node operators and delegators on a monthly basis. At the time of writing the mixmining reserve has 233m NYM tokens, so the vast majority have not yet been given out.
NYM tokens have all been minted on the Nyx (Cosmos) blockchain. NYM tokens can be bridged to Ethereum (ERC-20), and BNB chain with Celer.
Coinlist Option 1 buyers received 47,839,205 NYM (ERC-20) tokens at time of sale via this address: 0x525A8F6F3Ba4752868cde25164382BfbaE3990e1.
Coinlist Option 2 buyers, backers, validators and team and are on a vesting schedule, with native NYM tokens released on a quarterly basis (see schedule below for details).
Native NYM tokens can be staked on Nym nodes to serve as a measure for reputation, removing them from circulation to be bonded or delegated on nodes to serve as reputation. They can be un-bonded and un-delegated at any time.

Nyx is home to two smart contracts vital to the Nym mixnet. These are the Mixnet Contract and the Vesting Contract. Let’s take a closer look at them:

The Mixnet Contract

The Mixnet Contract facilitates rewards, reputation and payments, and currently contains NYM tokens from three sources:

A mixmining reserve to bootstrap rewards for mix nodes until paid usage kicks in. Rewards are released on a monthly basis.
Tokens received to bond a mixnode. These can be withdrawn.
Tokens received to delegate stake to a mix node. These can be withdrawn.

When paid usage of the Nym mixnet kicks in, this smart contract will also receive NYM tokens from people and services paying to access the mixnet.

The mixmining reserve started off with 250M NYM tokens. There was an initial Mixnet Contract with the Nyx address: n104glfyskvrnx9u4upgqnz67axma72m5we3qaj4. This contract only held 5.2m NYM as it was expected that an upgrade would be needed shortly.

Once the upgrade and migration to a new smart contract was completed, the remaining 244.8m NYM tokens were transferred to this new contract, for a total of 250m mixmining reserve. The change of Mixnet Contract happened on the 15 of November 2022. This corresponds to the release of the Nym binaries v1.1.0 on the 16th of November 2022.

The mixnet Nyx contract address is: n17srjznxl9dvzdkpwpw24gg668wc73val88a6m5ajg6ankwvz9wtst0cznr

Both mix node operators and delegators have received rewards since launch, with approximately 233m remaining in the mixmining reserve.

The Mixnet Contract holds an additional 149m in delegated stake, making for a total of 382m NYMs in the contract at the time of publishing.

In short, the Mixnet Contract on the Nyx chain handles all aspects of reputation, rewards and payments for Nym.

The Vesting Contract

The Vesting Contract (393m NYMs at present), facilitates the distribution of vesting tokens on a quarterly basis to Coinlist buyers, backers and team. Contract address: n1nc5tatafv6eyq7llkr2gv50ff9e22mnf70qgjlv737ktmt4eswrq73f2nw

CoinList buyers are on a two-year vesting schedule that began in May 2022.

Backers are on a two-year vesting schedule that began in August 2022.

Nym team are on two-year vesting schedules with different start dates.

The remaining vesting schedule at the time of writing is as follows:

Nym remaining vesting schedule from August 2023

Nym is laying the groundwork for the future of the private internet, one that’s anti-surveillance, open source, transparent and decentralised. Learn more about Nym and the token economics: read the token economic whitepaper, bonding and delegating NYMs as stake to earn rewards, guide to bridging NYMs.

Find the Nym Developer Portal here.