Testing the Radix Betanet that Solves the Blockchain Trilemma

As DeFi disrupted traditional finance, Radix is now disrupting DeFi. The most successful decentralized finance protocols, such as Ethereum, Polkadot, and Binance Smart Chain, have grown quickly and shown great promise. However, they are limited by the blockchain trilemma of scalability, decentralization, and security.

We‘ll consider the approach that Radix is taking and the progress it’s making with its betanet shortly, but first, let‘s consider the problems that prompted the project’s creation.

The Blockchain Trilemma Holding Back DeFi

DeFi platforms like Ethereum are limited by the blockchain trilemma, which describes the trade-offs between scalability, security, and decentralization. Each fundamental principle is critical to realizing the enormous potential of a truly decentralized financial system.

1、Scalability: Scalability, also known as throughput, is the number of transactions that can be processed on the platform per second. While Visa can process 65,000 transactions per second, Ethereum can only process 15.

2、Decentralization: Decentralization is the degree that control is spread out across a network, rather than relying on a central authority like an exchange, brokerage, or bank. For any changes to be made on the network, there must first be an agreement among the nodes.

3、Security: Security is how resistant the network is to hacks and tampering. For people to trust a protocol to handle their financial transactions, a DeFi network must be secure.

Failing Attempts to Solve the Blockchain Dilemma

Simultaneously implementing the three principles of scalability, decentralization, and security on one protocol has been the great promise of DeFi, however, no platform has solved this dilemma. Essentially, protocols have been forced to pick two of those features and forgo the third.

1、Binance Smart Chain: Binance Smart Chain is generally considered secure and scalable. However, with only 21 nodes confirming functions on the network, it lacks decentralization.

2、Ethereum 2.0: The popularity of Ethereum has caused a bottleneck for developers wanting to build on the protocol and has resulted in high gas fees. In response to the scalability issue, they are moving to Ethereum 2.0 which will use a layer two scaling solution. Unfortunately, state sharding has moved further down the roadmap, leaving an non-optimal solution for composability between layer 2 instances.

3、Polkadot: Polkadot is designed specifically to incorporate shards into its protocol, with a hub-and-sidechain architecture. Sharding lets different applications run on different sections of the blockchain.

Ethereum, Polkadot, and BSC Don‘t Deliver on DeFi’s Promise

On the surface, it appears that Ethereum and Polkadot solve the blockchain trilemma by implementing shards. However, shards simply introduce a new barrier to scalability—the shards lack interoperability between the apps on each segment. In essence, they lack composability.

By segmenting the blockchain into different shards, the apps are stuck in silos and transactions cannot be easily processed across the entire Ethereum network. For example, a decentralized exchange (DEX) running one shard cannot easily connect to another DEX on a different shard. While some may argue that the Ethereum network can now technically ‘scale,’ it‘s clear that the valuable network effects don’t scale with it.

Despite best intentions, these protocols have mirrored one of the limiting factors of the traditional financial system; capital is trapped inside siloed ecosystems. This leaves the door open for a competing protocol based on better technology.

Solving the Blockchain Trilemma with Radix

Radix has created an ingenious solution to the blockchain trilemma. Instead of adding a sharding layer to an existing blockchain, its distributed ledger technology begins pre-sharded and then connects each shard via a secure consensus mechanism.

While shards allow the network to scale as needed, the consensus mechanism brings shards together temporarily when required through a process called “braiding.” This lets apps sitting on different shards remain interoperable with the entire network. Its the first truly scalable DeFi protocol.

Radix has built this technology over seven years, with strategic investments from VC LocalGlobe and TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus. Now, with the core technology built, Radix is ready to test the protocol with a betanet before launching the first fully-fledged version mid-year.

Overcoming Ethereums First Mover Advantage

Ethereum has a distinct first-mover advantage with a strong community of developers building on the platform. This advantage is expected to diminish over the coming few years as Radixs superior technology attracts the best developers and investors. Furthermore, the fast growth on the platform that Radix expects to see is supported by several factors including:

1、Secure development (less exploits) due to smart contracts on finite state machines.

2、Much faster and cheap due to less time needed for security testing and development

3、Reduced time to market for developers, saving weeks if not months

4、Transaction fees will cost 1 cent or less, ensuring it can process small transactions.

5、Transactions are fast, with confirmations occurring in 0.2 seconds and finalizing in 5 seconds.

While Ethereum has built a stronger community thus far, Radix has built a better technology and a loyal following. Now its time to introduce it to the DeFi community, starting with the betanet.

Building the Radix Community Begins with Betanet

Radix is launching a betanet on April 28 to stress-test the protocol, before it is released fully functional as the Olympia mainnet mid-year. The betanet will run until just before the mainnet goes live, giving developers and users an opportunity to test the protocol and get prepared for the mainnet launch.

To participate in the betanet, you can:

1、Install a Radix desktop wallet on your computer and stake test tokens to a validator node.

2、Run a full node, maintaining a copy of the ledger and forwarding transactions to validator nodes.

3、Run a validator node, if youre one of the most trusted and informed community members.

When the Olympia mainnet is launched mid-year, participants of the Radix betanet will be positioned to become the earliest adopters of the first DeFi protocol that truly solves the blockchain trilemma.