There was an IPO. 73 people contributed 21 BTC in total to the IPO and each person received 1 NXT per 2 satoshis. So if you had invested 1 BTC (i.e. 100 million satoshis), you would have received 50 million NXT. The NXT you get from proof-of-stake forging comes from transaction fees so the 1 billion NXT coin supply doesn't change.
so do the original people lose coins when the rest of us forge them? where are the forged coins coming from? are they created? or taken from the 73 investors?
I only just got into NXT a couple of days ago so I don't claim to be an expert but my understanding is that it costs 1 NXT to make a NXT transaction. So in order to send 300 NXT to your friend, you will next to pay a 1 NXT fee. It is these transaction fees are given back to the forgers who engage in proof-of-stake forging and the amount of coins they forge is proportional to the amount of coins they have. And there are now much more than 73 people who use NXT because the original stakeholders sold their coins on exchanges and/or gave them away via faucets, etc.
