This is a little slap-dash, so I apologize if it's unclear!
What is, in a few sentences, the "vision" behind Nxt?An evolution of the Bitcoin concept, focused on agility and utility, that is born out of five years of Bitcoin blockchain evolution. Nxt is a far more flexible "building block" for advanced decentralized systems that more accurately realize Bitcoin's vision than Bitcoin does.
Nxt addresses issues related to the hashpower race, "mining culture", and centralization of mining power (all related to Proof-of-Work implementation); transaction speeds/rates; and energy efficiency.
Nxt is not a cryptocurrency. It is a cryptoplatform.
What is the purpose of Nxt? Nxt demonstrates that lessons have been learned from Bitcoin, and that improvements can be made. Its purpose is to serve as a "low-level" crypto platform.
What are the goals of Nxt?- Displace all other "bitcoin-fork" altcoins by demonstrating Nxt's superior implementation of second-generation cryptoplatform features
- Serve as the foundation for the creation of truly decentralized applications, communications, and value exchanges by providing an application-agnostic system for building any number of applications
- Foster a community that functions as Nxt does: in a fully-decentralized manner
Where are we now?In many ways, still at step one. Until Transparent Forging, Account Control, Asset Exchange and Voting System features are fully implemented, Nxt is still "pre-1.0". Moreover, the community still needs time to build:
- robust clients that value user experience and security
- toolkits for Nxt integration into other systems (for remittances, exchange, etc.)
- recognition and acceptance from key members of the Bitcoin community
What are the key issues with Nxt at this point?1) Much of the current work on Nxt is actually centralized, with BCNext/CfB as the source of that centralization. Both people have suggested they are frustrated with this situation, but their inability to communicate clearly (for whatever reason: language barrier, paranoia, Yoda-syndrome, etc.) has kept it from evolving. The fact that source code is now fully open should help attract new devs and cryptographers to the fold, but this will take some time.
2) We still lack a full slate of rich clients. Several are CLOSE, but as long as major changes are still being regularly made to the Nxt core (changes to port numbers, configuration file formats, data storage formats, HTTP GET vs POST changes, the low-level API) it will be difficult for all of these clients to "catch up". As a current example: almost none of the currently-available clients work "as-is" under Nxt v0.8.4e.
3) We lack respect, recognition, and buy-in from the Bitcoin community. This cannot be underestimated. Those of us in the Nxt ecosystem know that Mastercoin is easier under Nxt; that Protoshares is easier under Nxt; that Bitalo is easier under Nxt; that Ethereum is easier under Nxt; that Zerocoin is easier under Nxt. We just need to convince the folks who are building those platforms.
What are our key target groups? Define at most three.- The existing cryptocurrency community; specifically the core Bitcoin team and teams working on "Bitcoin 2.0" services
- Anyone who can reliably operate a Nxt node, hopefully as part of providing a service built on Nxt (remittances, applications, DAC, etc.)
- The greater user community. Only a small fraction of average people know about Bitcoin; only a small fraction of
those know about Nxt.
What are the current strategies to engage these groups? Name at most three.- Build connections with key players in other cryptocurrency spaces
- Continue to build Nxt clients and services
- Leverage a framework of stakeholders, media outlets, and user communities to help disseminate information about what's new and exciting about Nxt
Name a few of the employed tactics in these strategies.- Press releases for new features
- Involvement in charity fundraisers
What strategies and tactics aren't we using and cóuld be used?- Evolve past the "swarm" method to build a communications framework for Nxt: a network of key contacts, identified by their areas of interest, as well as a system for generating appropriate information (press releases, coffee-chats, face to face meetings, etc.) for those audiences.
- Reach out to the technical community FIRST. Get them to buy into Nxt and then spread the word to the rest of the world. "Average Joe" should arrive at
www.nxtcrypto.org to find a complete system ready to use; not the promise of one. In other words: stop putting the cart before the horse, and start feeding the horse.
- Continue to maintain lists of Bitcoin and crypto conferences and meetups, and get real human beings out to those events armed with good information and tools
