NXT, the 2.0 blockchain platform, has released a bundle of new features in their latest 1.5.10 release which include: Decentralized Voting, escrowed transactions (Phasing), Prunable Messages of up to 42 kilobytes (4,000 – 5,000 words), and more.

NXT is a second generation blockchain and financial network and smart contracting platform built from scratch in Java.

NXT has been involved in the blockchain tech development race since late 2012 and has one of most active crypto-currency decentralized asset exchanges to date, up there with Bitshares, Counter Party, Omni and NuBits. It allows users to create 'altcoins,' equity, assets and currencies at will and for fairly small fees. All of this on top of a network secured by one of the largest and most active Proof of Stake communities.

You can experiment with all the new and old features on this test-net, courtesy of the Jay wallet. Below are some of the features included in the NXT 1.5.10 update.

Phased Transactions

The new release comes with the much awaited feature of escrowed transactions, official named Phasing or Phased transactions. NXT has many transaction types such as creating an asset or currency, registering an alias, sending anything to anyone in NXT, sending messages, Voting Polls, Voting submissions, etc.

Phasing allows any and all NXT transactions to be recorded on the blockchain, only if all or a certain amount of parties approve it.

Users can define who they want to have a say on their transactions with a variety of standards including:

A white list of specific accounts that must approve. Similar to Bitcoin n of m signatures (multi-sig) can be set;

Accounts with a user defined percentage or 'Stake' in a specific asset or currency, hosted on top of NXT;

Accounts with a specific amount of NXT, asset or currency.

All Phased transactions have an expiration date, which the user can also define. Thus, if others don't approve the transaction, the resources you were attempting to send will become available again for later use and not get stuck in "pending" limbo.