Will NEM (XEM) Maintain Its Undercover Status?

NEM (XEM) is known as a dark horse in the crypto community and for good reason. Despite its position as the 14th largest coin by market cap (which used to be a lot higher), very few investors actually know and understand what this cryptocurrency is all about. The coin owes its rankings to an ever increasing interest from Japan. According to Coinmarketcap.com, XEM/JPY pair accounts for more than 40% of its trade volume. Next in line is XEM/BTC at 15% and XEM/KRW at 12.5%. This means that a combined total of more than 67% trade volume is from Asia.  NEM (XEM) is a smart contracts platform just like Ethereum (ETH) and is one of its direct competitors. Their network is faster than Ethereum (ETH) and is also more advanced in terms of scalability. However, investors have not had a good experience holding NEM (XEM) in the past. One incident that stands out is the theft of $534 million in NEM (XEM) from the Japanese exchange, Coincheck. This was certainly a big blow to NEM (XEM) and it had a hard time recovering. Despite these challenges, those who have been following the technological developments by NEM (XEM) have been amazed by their foresightedness and tactful approach to critical blockchain issues.  Today an important concern in the blockchain community is the lack of people who want to spend their coins. If we are to have volume and liquidity in the markets, it is important that money is spent and exchanged by people. However, given the speculative nature of cryptocurrencies, nobody wants to spend their coins. If you have the option to buy a laptop on Amazon via Bitcoin or your credit card using fiat currency, chances are you will use your credit card because you do not want to miss out on all the gains when the price rises. While hoarding is good for investors, it is not good for the consumer. The lack of people who want to spend their cryptocurrencies translates into a lack of will on behalf of businesses to create and adopt gateways that accept cryptocurrencies.  To alleviate this problem, NEM (XEM) uses Proof of Importance (PoI). This means that NEM (XEM) rewards its users for holding and spending NEM (XEM). Any spent NEM (XEM) is rewarded in the form of a 20% refund to users who can use it conduct more NEM transactions or buy other cryptocurrencies. NEM (XEM) also has an advanced messaging platform and uses aggregated transactions and secure Multisig accounts. While the project has a lot going on in the background, the team prefers to maintain a low key style and does not market its activities and developments as much as its competitors. Rumors about a partnership with WeChat recently surfaced which were soon denied by the NEM Team. However, NEM (XEM) has continued to expand its reach to encourage developers and business owners to use its Smart Assets Platform for an unrestricted access to their blockchain.