Empowering People with Blockchain
Welcome to Symbol & NEM. Empowering the world with robust and easy-to-use Web3 infrastructure!
A public blockchain inspired by NEM
After the original NEM blockchain launch in 2014, redevelopment under the codename 'Catapult' began with the intention of improving performance, enhancing functionality, and the refining the consensus algorithm. In 2021, 'Symbol' was launched as a distinct blockchain using the completed 'Catapult' codebase. Several months after launch, a successful 'community hard fork' across both NEM and Symbol established a new path forward; this new direction includes an emphasis on engaged community, genuine decenteralization, and a vision of a novel protocol layer facilitating universal cross-chain collaboration that would eventually emerge from NEM and Symbol
What is NEM?Advanced Functionality
Symbol has rock solid interfacing and excellent extensibility through its plugin-based architecture. Developers can easily combine and utilize advanced plug-in interfaces inclidng a Command Line Interface, public SDK, and REST APIs. Developers do not have to start from scratch, and off-chain application developement avoids immutable bugs, exposed code, and countless hours spent verifying and debugging before deployment.
Supporting Safe Transactions
Built-in security for multisig signatures
Native support for multi-signature accounts allows up to 25 signatories and up to 3 signatory levels. The combination of multi-signature and multi-level logic approach enables extreme flexibility in approval logic. In the event of one signatory losing their private key or requiring removal, access to the multisig account can be adjusted with the signatures of all the other co-signatories. This facilitates the design of security and flexible operation of the blockchain implementation according to the user's practice.
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Provide a powerful, stable, secure, and fast solid network with a Four-Layered Architecture
The Symbol blockchain is built on a multi-layered node architecture. PeerNodes maintains the network, decentralizing the Symbol chain and recording its transactions and history. APINodes interface with PeerNodes and wallets for transaction requests, history, and the generation of new blocks. API nodes also include Rest Gateways, which facilitate a wide variety of external requests from wallets and custom-built solutions. In addition to REST API gateways, Nodes also include a robust Command Line Interface that helps facilitate localized solutions and plugins. The Symbol Client consists of the wallet and the SDK; it is largely modularised to encourage innovation, ensure security, and simplify updates.
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PoS+ consensus algorithm
Consensus algorithms are shared or mutually agreed upon by all participating nodes in a network, and is used in the generation of new blocks. In Symbol, the PoS+ (Proof of Stake Plus) consensus algorithm is adopted as an improved version of NEM's PoI (Proof of Importance) algorithm. Symbol's PoS+ mechanism allows nodes to periodically 'Harvest' new blocks proportionate to their 'importance'. The PoS+ mechanism considers not only 'amount of staking', but it also promotes the ecosystem’s health by rewarding participants based on their activity score which are counted through 'total fees used by the wallet' and 'number of times of reward in the past', using to discourage the continued concentration of wealth in certain accounts. The POS+ algorithm avoids unnecessary energy waste, and is much more environmentally friendly than the Proof of Work algorythms that secure many blockchains. Node operators and delegators are rewarded for their contribution to the maintainance of the chain via harvesting rewards. These rewards draw from a signifigant pool of XYM allocated for this purpose, and follow a declining reward rate schedule linked to Bitcoin's block reward model.
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News Release
Smooth integration into existing systems
The core contributors behind NEM learned countless lessons along the way, and these lessons have heavily influenced Symbol. Symbol was designed with usability and extensibility in mind; while wallets profoundly enable the average user, the boundless extensibility provided by the SDK, CLI, and Rest API effectively shatter barriers to development. You do not need to learn cryptography nor a specific programming language in order to profoundly interact with the blockchain; even junior developers and hobbiests can build with ease.
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