In this article, I try to reach deep into the RadixDLT token that has been in development phase for the past 5 years with an aim to deal with the scalability problem in most blockchains. I will try offer an in depth analysis to the token and the solutions its offers to the Bitcoin, Ethereum and other blockchains on scalability.
Introduction
The whitepaper
Radix platform offers the users with a scalable platform that allows faster transactions, the development of decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts. The RDX token aims at providing a stable coin that can be used by merchants easily without high price volatility. In the world of cryptocurrencies, the companies and communities publish the whitepaper as a means to make the users understand better their project, ideas and the blockchain itself. The company released the Tempo Ledger whitepaper in September 2017 to explain the distributed ledger technology of Radix which is discussed below. Later in December, the nodes incentives whitepaper was released by Dan Hugher and Piers Ridyard. The paper discusses the development and implementation of mechanisms to reward work carried out across a public ledger, creating incentives for a distributed network of computers to carry out useful work within a trustless environment. The DLT system is not available on open source platforms for development. However, the Radix developers’ preferred to develop the protocol alone first before releasing it on Github for the beta testing. It is crucial to notice that Satoshi took this same path when developing the Bitcoin blockchain.
In all this, Radix developers still do not have an economic white paper. The lack of an economic whitepaper makes most of the technological stuff talked about in the incentives and Tempo Ledger whitepapers hard to understand for the general public. The papers explain the decentralized ledger technology in depth, explaining the scalability solution and how to incentivize the developers and early token holders. They however need to release the economic whitepaper (Radix Economics) for more users to understand the token stability quality and its investment value.
Technology
As discussed before Radix, RAD tokens uses the decentralized leger technology (DLT) to record transactions. RadixDLT offers a system that is an improvement, albeit different, to blockchain technology in terms of scalability. RadixDLT stores all transactions and orders in the protocol in a global distributed ledger, named the Tempo Ledger. This ledger consists of three fundamental components: a networked cluster of nodes, a global ledger database distributed across the nodes and an algorithm for generating a cryptographically secure record of temporally ordered events.
The Radix token
The Radix token, RDX is a coin that is built in RadixDLT system that allows global scalability and most importantly value stability. Not price but value. RDX tokens total number is not fixed but expandable. This allows for corrections in times of deflation and also discourages big whales in the industry holding large quantities of the coin.
At press time, the coin is only being held by the early private investors that invested in the token in 2013. When asked about the ICO of the token early in 2017, Radix co-founder, Dan Hugher explained that there was no need to raise capital through the ICO or other VC firms since they had enough money for development till the finishing point. He later hinted through the Radix global forum that the ICO will be in Q2 March 2018 with the coins only offered through the Decentralized exchange (DEX) which will be hosted by the Radix platform. The token is to solve a ‘future’ problem of many cryptocurrencies, scalability and stability. As more and more people accept the technology, more transactions will be made hence faster transaction times from the blockchain is required. Bitcoin currently allows for 3.3-7 transactions per second on a block while Ethereum allows for double that at 13 transactions per second. Compare this to Visa that transacts 47,000 accounts per second at maximum capacity and Facebook handles over 145,000 accounts per minute and you will very well see that the cryptocurrency world requires scalable chains that can handle billions of users. The current level of technology cannot provide such rates but Radix aims at reaching the number into the thousands.
How scalable is the market for Radix?
This is Radix. It has no limit as to what it may achieve if the right people invest into it. The overall cryptomarket can be linked to the platform. The scalability project of the protocol itself makes it ideal for new cryptocurrencies to be based on the decentralized ledger technology. It expands into a new platform that allows the development of decentralized Apps, writing of smart contracts and instant transactions just as Ethereum but it will solve the scalability problem that Ethereum blockchain has. The Radix token though is focused on the ease of value transaction between persons and companies. Most crypto-friendly merchants today deal with cryptocurrencies but through a 3rd party such as an exchange. However, the high volatility of cryptos make it hard for sellers to accept the tokens since the value of the token may dip in the future hence losing investments. The token though allows for stability in value easing the stance of merchants to accept the coin. So far, in the 5 years of development, the founders have spoken on the ability of the coin to replace fiat money while avoiding the volatility present in other coins. This presents a welcome call to the various merchants who want to use cryptocurrencies but cannot deal with the volatility. This gives the coin an upper hand in allowing millions and billions of people deal with a token that has relative stability in value,a global scalability decentralized ledger network and has instant transactions.
The team
Radix DLT team represent a well driven, goal oriented and financially backed team that focuses on the improvement of the system. Dan Hughes, founder and CTO at Radix DLT Ltd., found KDB Technologies, which provides professional services in line with its business strategy and covers commercial and technical aspects of services and mobile terminal design and development, and worked previously as a system developer at Cisco Systems Inc.
Paul Ridyard, the CEO at Radix DLT Ltd., has a reputation of being a serial entrepreneur. He has started roughly four fintech companies before deciding to create Radix. He has stayed at the company for five years with an intention to make the token widely marketable and acceptable to merchants. The team runs various platforms to promote their idea, answer interested users questions and advertise their new projects. It is the first cryptocurrency that I have seen having its own social platform, the global Radix forum, where members, developers, bloggers and staff of Radix exchange questions and answers. It is an interactive platform where most of the staff members (especially Dan) get a chance to answer various users’ questions and argue out on better enhancements to the protocol. The team also has other platforms in use such as Steemit, Reddit and Facebook.
How do you make money?
Various positives and criticisms are offered when crypto enthusiasts talk about the token. For this coin, much has been said by the developers and staff members of Radix with an aim to make more people understand the concept of the coin. The coin has set limits on the return using elastic demand/supply rules in the system preventing the huge volatile levels of cryptocurrencies in general. Given that the coin is not a return on investment coin but a stable token makes more investors uneasy on the possibility of making a quick profit on the coin as other coins shoot to the moon. However, in the long term the coin provides a stable reward system whereby for every doubling of the market capitalization of the coin, the holders receive 50% of the RDX they hold. If you owned 1% of all RDX held when the market capitalization is at $100m and it increases to $200m, the system rewards you with an additional 0.5% with the rest going to node development. You will now own 0.75% of the total market capitalization. This prevents big players in the market from owning large stakes hence prevents the misallocation of the currency.
Rating on Investment: 7/10
This represents a good investment with a long term future at hand unlike other cryptocurrencies which are very volatile. This make it easy for transaction purposes due to the preservation of value of the currency and scalability prospects. It however hasn’t yet launched an ICO and requires a large following for its stability and scalability goals to work. We hope the marketing team is ready for the challenge.