NEM (short for New Economy Movement) is a dual layer blockchain platform quite similar to Ethereum's, with the main difference being that the former is written in Java. Launched on March 31, 2015, it has a peer to peer cryptocurrency, having the ticker symbol XEM which is 'harvested' using a Proof-of-Importance (PoI) algorithm. NEM's the first cryptocurrency after Bitcoin to have built its code from scratch. Its mainnet supports multiple ledgers on its cryptocurrency layer. The powerful Smart Assets layer supports mosaics to represent any store of value.
NEM has uses in various fields like:
Financial management - financial payments, equity markets, creating a very own cryptocurrency and many more.
Business management - automatic accounting, KYC, loyalty reward points, shipping, inspection and supply chain management.
Secure records - encrypted messaging, anti-counterfeiting, authentication, etc.
Decentralised organisations - voting security and can be used for crowdfunding, stock ownership and ICOs.
Unlike BTC and many other altcoins, NEM/XEM cannot be mined, well not exactly. The process by which new XEM coins can be obtained is called 'harvesting'. The other way to have XEM coins is via exchanges and there are plenty of them like Binance, Bittrex, CoinSwitch, HitBTC, etc.
*I'm new to this cryptocurrency world and whatever I learn, I write. I know it's all basic stuff, but I hope that, for those who are, like me, newbies, this might help.*