How it works, in plain words

Use Nero is a place where anyone can launch a small token and anyone else can buy it, sell it or pass it on. Everything is paid in Monero (XMR), the private cryptocurrency. You never install anything: you send Monero to an address we make for you, and the token shows up in your account here.

There are three kinds of people on the site. Creators launch tokens. Traders buy and sell them. Everyone can check the history.

The first time you open the backup page, your browser makes a private key and keeps it. That key is your account. There is no email, no password and no reset button, which is exactly why it is private: nobody else has a copy, including us.

The 64 characters you are asked to write down are that key in plain text. Keep them somewhere safe and you can get your account back on any device. Lose them and the account is gone for good. Every buy, sell and transfer you make is signed with this key, the way you would sign a cheque, so the platform can never act as you.

Back up your key takes a minute and unlocks everything else.

Most exchanges match buyers with sellers. Here there is no matching and no waiting. Each token has a price rule called a bonding curve: the more of the token that has been bought, the higher the price. Every buy nudges the price up. Every sell nudges it down.

That is all a curve is. You can see the whole path on any token page, from where the price is now to where it will be when the token graduates. Early buyers pay less; later buyers pay more. Nothing is hidden and nobody can move the price except by trading.

A launch is four fields: a name, a short ticker, an optional picture, and the amount of XMR the token should raise before it graduates. You also give a Monero address of your own, used only if something ever needs refunding.

When you submit, you get an address and a small launch fee to send to it. As soon as that fee arrives and confirms, your token goes live on the market for everyone to see. Until then it sits as pending, with a countdown, and nobody can buy it.

Launch a token

Open a token, press Trade, and type how much XMR you want to spend. You get a quote first: how many tokens that buys right now and the fee. Nothing happens until you press Confirm, which signs the order with your key.

Then you get an address made for this one order, with a QR code. Send exactly the amount shown from any Monero wallet. The Monero network confirms it over a few blocks, about two minutes each, and the tokens are credited to your account automatically. Your portfolio shows every step.

Prices move while you are paying, so each order has a slippage limit: if the price has moved more than you allowed by the time your XMR lands, you are refunded instead of overpaying.

Selling is the same in reverse. You type how many tokens to sell and the Monero address that should receive the XMR, see the quote, and confirm with your key. The platform then pays you out of its wallet. You can watch the payout move from queued to signed to sent to confirmed, and you get the transaction id at the end. The network fee for that payment is taken from the amount.

Transfers move tokens from your account to someone else's, instantly and for free. You only need their public key, which they can copy from the top of their portfolio page.

Every token is launched with a target: the amount of XMR to raise. Each buy fills that target a little more, and the token page shows the percentage. When it is reached, the token graduates: the curve closes, and the token keeps trading on its own at whatever price people agree on.

A deposit address is only valid for a window of blocks, and every order card shows the countdown. This protects you: a payment that arrives late cannot fill an order at a price that no longer exists.

If your payment lands after the window closed, or does not match the order, it is not lost. It is sent back to the refund address you gave, minus the network fee. Your portfolio tells you which of these happened.

One fee: 1% of each buy and each sell, taken in XMR. There is no gas, no listing fee and no withdrawal fee. Launching a token has a small fixed launch fee, shown to you before you send anything. The only other cost is the ordinary Monero network fee on payments, which goes to the miners, not to us.

Every action on the site, from a launch to a transfer, is a signed entry in one long log. Every so often the platform takes a fingerprint of that entire log and writes it into a real Monero transaction. Once that transaction is confirmed, the fingerprint can never change, so nobody, including us, can quietly rewrite what happened before it.

The anchors page lists every fingerprint with its transaction. Anyone with a bit of technical curiosity can replay the log themselves and check that the numbers match.

You hold your key, and with it your token balances, your refund address and your payout address. Nobody can sign a trade as you.

The platform holds the XMR that backs every curve, in a wallet it controls, and pays sells out of it. That is a real trust: if the platform disappeared, that XMR would be at risk. The anchors above let you check the ledger is honest, but they do not prove the wallet is full. Only put in what you are comfortable with, the same as on any exchange.

• Write your key down before you do anything else. A screenshot is the weakest option.
• Send exactly the amount shown, to the address shown, before the countdown ends.
• Use refund and payout addresses from a wallet you control, never an exchange deposit address.
• Check a transfer recipient's key twice. Transfers cannot be undone.
• Tokens can go to zero. Treat this as entertainment money.

Still have a question? The two-minute guide covers the basics in even fewer words.