Internet Money
Testnet running Ticker IMN Proof of work No premine No developer fee

Money for the internet that a shop can check for itself.

Internet Money is an open-source proof-of-work currency built for payments. Blocks arrive about every five seconds, and the network is kept small enough that a merchant can run a full node and verify every payment without a payment processor in between.

Illustration of the invoice flow. Timings shown are typical on the test network, not guarantees.

§1The numbers
Block time
5seconds
Consensus
GHOSTDAGk = 8
Launch reward
5IMN / block
Halving
4years
Reward floor
0.3125IMN / block
Smallest unit
10−8IMN (1 atom)
§2Why build it

Three decisions, each made for the person taking the payment.

  1. A node small enough to run yourself

    Fast chains produce so much data that shops end up trusting someone else's API. At one block every five seconds the chain grows slowly, so a merchant can keep a verifying node on an inexpensive server and ask it directly whether they were paid.

  2. Parallel blocks are merged, not thrown away

    When two miners find a block at the same moment, a plain chain discards one. The GHOSTDAG protocol keeps both and puts them in a single agreed order, which is what lets the block time be short without wasting honest work.

  3. Mining bound by memory, not by custom chips

    The proof of work is called Hallmark. It is FishHash, the memory-hard algorithm built for Iron Fish, with a seed of our own. Every hash makes random reads across gigabytes of memory, the thing consumer graphics cards already do well. That limits what custom chips can gain; it does not rule them out.

§3For merchants

Take a payment with a few lines of code.

Every order gets an invoice number that the payer's wallet signs into the payment, so your node can tell you exactly which order was paid and how settled it is. Funds go straight to an address you control. Nobody holds them on the way.

  • SDK for the browser and Node.js
  • WooCommerce plugin for WordPress stores
  • No intermediary fee; the network fee is a fraction of a cent

Both are in development and run against the test network only. Do not use them for real orders yet.

checkout.js@imoney/sdk
// Talk to a node you run
const client = new IMoneyClient({
  nodeUrl: 'http://127.0.0.1:18556'
});

client.openCheckoutModal({
  merchantAddress: 'imntest:q...',
  amountImn: '12.5',
  invoiceId: 'INV-1042',
  level: 'included',
  onSuccess: (payment) => {
    markOrderPaid(payment.invoiceId);
  }
});
§4Supply

Every coin is mined. The schedule is fixed in the code.

The reward halves every four years, four times, and then stays at 0.3125 IMN per block for good, so miners are always paid to secure the network. There is no premine and no share for the developers.

5 2.5 0 0 4 8 12 16 year 20 IMN per block 0.3125 floor
YearsReward / blockMined in periodSupply at endInflation at start
0 – 45.0000126,144,000126,144,000—
4 – 82.500063,072,000189,216,00012.5%
8 – 121.250031,536,000220,752,0004.2%
12 – 160.625015,768,000236,520,0001.8%
16 onward0.31251,971,000 / yrno cap0.83%, falling
§5Where it stands

A test network is running. Here is exactly how far along it is.

The coins on the test network have no value and the chain can be restarted. There is no main network and no coin to buy. Anyone offering IMN for sale today is not us.

Works today

  • A test network with nodes on three continents
  • Explorer and wallet you can use from this site
  • GHOSTDAG ordering: nodes agree even when blocks conflict
  • Hallmark proof of work (FishHash), mined with graphics cards
  • Difficulty that follows the hashrate within minutes
  • A mining pool, and a pool protocol for other miners
  • Invoice numbers with seen, in-a-block and final levels
  • Shared wallets that need several people to approve a payment
  • Fees shared between the miner and the node that served the payment
  • 12-hour finality: older payments cannot be rewritten
  • Pruning, so a shop's node stays small
  • Downloads for Windows, Linux and macOS

Being built

  • A desktop app for the wallet and node
  • Keeping block headers out of memory
  • A faster graphics-card miner

Not started

  • Independent security review
  • Hardware-wallet support
  • Main network