NEM (XEM), or "New Economy Movement", wants to develop a smarter and more technologically mature blockchain. NEM should be an efficient and performance-focused competitor to other blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. In doing so, NEM primarily wants to serve companies as a target group. NEM was created in 2015 on the initiative of crypto enthusiasts who exchanged the advantages and disadvantages of existing currencies on the Internet. Originally the new system was intended as a fork of the currency "NXT", but in the end it was decided to implement NEM from scratch.