Nillion: Launch of the Blind Computer

Private computation and storage network Nillion, dubbed the “blind computer,” debuted its mainnet and native token NIL on Monday.

However, the token’s market capitalization has dropped 12% in the first 24 hours alongside continued listings by major exchanges, including South Korea’s Bithumb, and optimism in the analyst community about the project’s long-term prospects.

NIL debuted with a total supply of 1 billion, of which 19.52% or 195.15 million NIL were airdropped to the community on the first day, resulting in an at-inception market capitalization of just over $165 million.

Since then, its market value has dropped 12% to $144.93 million, with the token changing hands at 74 cents on major exchanges such as Binance, Gate.io, MEXC, Bitget, and others, according to data source Coingecko.

Earlier on Tuesday, Bithumb, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the altcoin-savvy South Korea, announced the listing of the NIL-Korean won pair on its platform.

Nillion’s Blind Computing

Nillion is a decentralized platform designed to support private, high-value data storage and computation, operating similarly to how blockchains decentralize transactions.

However, there’s a catch. Unlike blockchains that focus on transparent ledgers, Nillion employs Nil Message Compute (NMC), which allows computations on encrypted data without exposing (decrypting) it, ensuring that no single node or party has access to sensitive data.

The network’s architecture combines a Coordination Layer called nilChain and Petnet, with the latter utilizing privacy-enhancing technologies like multi-party computation, fully homomorphic encryption, and trusted execution environments to deliver data security.

This so-called blind computing starkly contrasts with traditional methods requiring decryption before processing, exposing sensitive data, such as personal health or financial information, to security threats and misuse.

Pivotal for AI Boom

Nillion addresses persistent challenges regarding data privacy and trust issues in sectors like artificial intelligence (AI) — personal assistants, healthcare AIs, private order books in decentralized finance, and more.

“Nillion is tackling AI’s biggest hurdle: trust. By weaving together cutting-edge privacy tech into a seamless backbone for AI, Nillion has the potential to become as fundamental to AI as SSL is to the web. If Nillion can make it as easy to use as it is powerful, they’ll be powering the next wave of AI adoption,” said Yau Teng Yan, founder and chief evangelist at research firm Chain of Thought, in a detailed post on X.

“The privacy revolution is just beginning,” Yan added.

Bullish Tokenomics

The NIL token serves as the governance cryptocurrency used to pay network fees for blind computation and payments across Nillion’s Coordination Layer and Petnet, securing the network through staking and participation in the on-chain governance module.

“NIL’s token economics is designed for adoption. NIL will power the network, securing operations while driving burn-based demand as usage scales,” Yan noted.