NEM is the only coin in the top 10, and possibly even top 20, that was not mining distribution (which mining kings dominate) or a massive ICO (rich get richer). NEM is the real underdog project in blockchain land and it is massively undervalued. NEM is like Amazon Google during dotcom, Amazon Google were ignored during all the dotcom hype.
That's the real reason why NEM always faced resistance in the top 1% of Crypto Land, especially on the Anglophone social media like Bitcointalk but also the biased outlets fake news like Coindesk (the original creator was a very wealthy man). If you don't let the mining kings or rich dominate your distribution then they send their shills to discredit your project and black list you on websites like Coindesk.
It's the same reason why U.S. politics is screwed up because the rich can lobby all day and completely mitigate and minimize working and middle class concerns.
NEM thrives in Japan and Asia because the blockchain whales are Anglophones who can't really manipulate things in East Asia due to language barriers.
Surely.
If we search the word "NEM" in Coindesk, amazingly there is no article title including the word "NEM" in spite of Top 10 position.
This gives the impression that they are purposely trying to ignore NEM because they don't welcome NEM's success.
