Dubbed the "digital currency of the modern world," the Nano is a lightweight cryptocurrency designed to facilitate secure, almost instant payments without any fees, and addresses some of the major limitations of traditional financial infrastructure and many modern cryptocurrencies.

Development of the project, called RaiBlocks, began in 2014, and tokens (then called XRB) were launched the following year via public taps, allowing users to receive a small amount of XRB after completing a captcha challenge. Anyone with access to a computer or phone can solve captchas and earn RaiBlocks rewards. Number of XRB received per solved captcha varies over time

RaiBlocks (XRB) changed its name to Nano in January 2018, choosing the new name to better represent the speed and simplicity the project offers its users.

It is a point-to-point platform using a unique block lattice data structure that allows users to easily transfer value to each other without relying on centralized intermediaries.

Unlike other platforms, which typically use the combined proof of work of large mining networks to reach consensus, Nano instead uses a system called open Representative Voting (ORV) - account holders vote for the representative of their choice, and they then work to safely confirm blocks of transactions.

ORV makes Nano very energy efficient, positioning it as a more environmentally friendly alternative to cryptocurrencies based on proof of work (POW).

In November 2021, in order to bring nano into the real world and meet the globally accepted standards required by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), nano adopted a new stock symbol and standard symbol: XNO and Ӿ.