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A handshake between traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) is finally happening! Nimiq – a non-profit and open source blockchain project has enabled Atomic Swaps for fiat and cryptocurrencies. The recent public beta launch of Nimiq’s OASIS (Open Asset Swap Interaction Scheme) marks the milestone event and allows users to go  from money in their bank account to crypto in their self-custodial wallet in less than 5 minutes!

With OASIS, Nimiq has adopted the tried and tested DeFi concepts of Atomic Swaps and Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLC) to handle off-chain assets, thereby creating a bridge between two different financial worlds. The OASIS protocol simulates off-chain assets to behave like blockchain tokens, making them programmable. The project has chosen EUR as the first off chain asset and has partnered with the German TEN31 Bank to make it possible.

The banking partnership enables OASIS Protocol to create a smart contract that interacts with the SEPA Instant system. Meanwhile, smart contracts for cryptocurrencies are created on their respective blockchains. With these two sets of smart contracts in place, a swap can be initiated to facilitate noncustodial, verifiable, peer-to-peer exchange of assets. Currently, the OASIS Protocol only supports the purchase of BTC and NIM with EUR from any SEPA Instant capable bank accounts, with more assets to be added soon.

Buy BTC and NIM with EUR on Nimiq OASIS

Nimiq is on a mission to make cryptocurrencies accessible to everyone. To do that, it is relentlessly working on simplifying most of the crypto related processes. The introduction of Nimiq OASIS is a huge step in that direction. The entire Nimiq ecosystem is designed to work within a web browser on any device with an internet connection.

Anyone can use Nimiq OASIS irrespective of their prior experience with cryptocurrencies by following a few simple steps. They just have to visit the webapp site wallet.nimiq.com and create an account by choosing an avatar which represents their self-custodial wallet address. Once the password is set and the account created, they can download the login file that contains the cryptographic key for future access to their account from any other browser instance or device.

After logging in, they can select Buy NIM and BTC option, pick Bank Transfer as the mode of payment to establish an Atomic Swap like connection. They can select bank name or enter the BIC of their SEPA Instant enabled bank, followed by the amount of cryptocurrency they wish to purchase and initiate the transaction. The fiat end of the smart contract will be filled by the executed SEPA Instant transaction while Nimiq’s Fastspot liquidity service takes care of the crypto end of things by transferring the requested number of tokens. After both contracts are fulfilled, OASIS will initiate a swap and the user will receive the purchased crypto in their wallet.

OASIS HTLC necessitates the contract to be fulfilled within 90 minutes of execution, failing which the funds transferred to respective contracts will be reversed, thereby eliminating counterparty risk.

Nimiq is on a Roll

With the integration of Nimiq OASIS into the Nimiq Wallet, it enables up to 350 million users in Europe to onboard effortlessly from fiat into crypto without personal registration and nothing more than a SEPA bank account. Armed with a proven technology solution, Nimiq intends to expand the applications of OASIS protocol to other wallets and assets. In the near future, OASIS powered widgets and APIs will be made available for enabling atomic swapping, buying and selling of any product. It will also act as a payment processor for businesses and ecommerce platforms by enabling them to accept crypto payments from their customers and receive fiat into their account as settlement.

Meanwhile, the Nimiq project continues to optimize crypto payments by upgrading their original Proof-of-Work chain to their evolved, state of the art Proof-of-Stake chain that pushes the theoretical performance limits of single chain protocols.

The days of ICOs are long gone, but new crypto projects have not stopped appearing. Today, according to the CoinMarketCap service, there are more than 8,000 thousand cryptocurrencies and tokens. And this is without taking into account those that analytic services do not add to the list or exclude from it. The choice is really extensive, but looking at the ICO, we understand that most of these coins are scams. How to choose a really promising crypto project from a great variety? You should pay attention to the following factors:

1. Community. Who, if not the audience of the project, will be able to support its new vectors of development? This also applies to new coins: if a project has a large and active community, then they will happily acquire a new token, they will not get rid of it, and this contributes to long-term growth.
2. Product. The coin must have a practical application. If there is none, then it was created to make money on price changes. As a rule, such coins do not last long; at some point, their creators drop the price by selling a large batch of an asset. And if the coin has a practical application, then a constant demand is provided for it, which will be a guarantee of a constant rise in price.
3. How the price of the coin showed itself at the start of the project and the next few months. It was said above that if a coin was created for the purpose of making money on price movements, then soon it will be depreciated. But if the coin at the start showed a good growth rate, but more importantly, it managed to maintain its position, then this speaks for one thing – the project developers and first investors are not going to get rid of it.
4. Prospects. In addition to practical application, you need to look at where the coin is already traded. If the project is new, then its token can be traded on a limited number of sites. Thus, with each new listing, the price of the coin will react positively, because the trading volume will increase. However, if a project has a history and is traded on many cryptocurrency platforms, then most likely sudden growth is not expected, because the potential has already been used up.

Very soon, the GR token will be listed on the Bitcoin.com cryptocurrency exchange. To understand if this is a worthy investment option, let’s evaluate the token based on the above factors:

1. Community. The creator of the token is Pavel Gromov, the owner of several Telegram channels that are dedicated to cryptocurrencies and traditional finance: Crypto Chief, Altseason, Margin, Gromov Says. The total audience of the channels exceeds 100 thousand people. In addition, a year ago, a service for providing trading signals Profit Chief was launched, within which the GR token was implemented.

2. Product. With the GR token, Profit Chief service clients can purchase

– Subscription to trading signals.
– Insurance against the depreciation of bitcoin.
– Investment notes.

3. How the price of the coin showed itself at the start of the project and the next few months. The GR token was released in October 2020 and cost $ 0.01. As of February 25, 2021, the cost of GR is $ 2.64 and according to the analytical service CoinMarketCap, it has quite normal volatility, that is, there was no sharp decline in price.

4. Prospects. Since its inception, the GR token has been traded only on the Uniswap decentralized platform. On March 10, 2021, its first listing on the centralized crypto exchange – Bitcoin.com will take place. The project management states that it is planned to enter several more large exchanges by the end of the year. The GR token is only at the beginning of its journey, and its listing on major exchanges will contribute to further growth.

But that is not all! On March 10-11, 2021, the Bitcoin.com exchange will host the AirDrop of the GRB stablecoin, which will be used in the new “Private Exchange” service of the Profit Chief service. To participate in AirDrop, you need to register on the Bitcoin.com exchange and have GR tokens on your balance. The more GR tokens on the balance, the more GRB stablecoins will be credited. The project has big plans for 2021 – all relevant information on the upcoming AirDrop can be read here.