Radix (eXRD) Token Sale Recap, Recent Developments and Project Breakdown
The Decentralised Finance (DeFi) space has grown rapidly over the past two years with the total value of locked funds currently in the excess $13.45 billion. This is a remarkable growth considering this figure stood at just around $200 million, two years ago.
This explosive growth is projected to continue into the foreseeable future with numerous new projects set to be launched and more people making valuable investments on different protocols. On this account, it is safe to say that DeFi is no longer a niche within the crypto space but rather is a fully blown sector itself.
The case for a DeFi specific blockchain protocol
Despite its meteoric rise and considerable bright future, the DeFi space is yet to establish itself completely in the blockchain industry. DeFi still lags behind in terms of infrastructure, tools, and development. Developers within the space have failed to keep up with the market’s intensity. Therefore, many new projects have been forced to find accommodations within the existing infrastructures and frameworks within the blockchain space.
For long, Ethereum has played its role as the perfect host for DeFi applications but the recent turn of events has laid bare the network’s vulnerabilities. The surge in activity from the DeFi sector has caused transaction fees to skyrocket sometimes reaching hundreds of dollars.
Clearly, this is not sustainable and there is a need to develop solutions around this problem to ensure the DeFi can grow in a scalable manner. Multiple proposals have been put forth on how to improve Ethereum’s scalability to accommodate the explosive DeFi sector. However, most of these solutions are just temporary fixes that cannot guarantee long term sustainability of DeFi on Ethereum.
The main reason is that Ethereum is built as a general purpose blockchain, meaning it is not specifically suited for DeFi. Even if the proposed solutions could fix the scalability issue, the protocol will still need further upgrades and fixes down the line to accommodate the ever growing demands.
Radix in a nutshell
Radix is a decentralised ledger technology platform built specifically for new financial applications. Unlike the existing blockchains where DApps are built as layer 2 solutions, the Radix protocol allows developers to create layer 1 DeFi applications. This ensures they run directly on the main chain resulting in multiple benefits like higher efficiencies, speed, and security.
Radix not only provides a platform for building DeFi applications but also provides an ecosystem to help them thrive. Therefore, Radix focuses on the three drivers of DeFi growth: access, liquidity, and choice. These factors are critical for the creation of a scalable, secure and community-driven DeFi platform that effectively matches the demands of the rapidly growing sector. As such, Radix is committed to providing frictionless access, liquidity, and programmability of any asset in the world. This is facilitated by the following Radix breakthrough inventions and unique features created specifically for DeFi:
- Cerberus
The Radix protocol runs on the Cerberus consensus algorithm, a unique mechanism specifically built to support DeFi applications. Cerberus is based on Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT), making Radix a highly scalable protocol by enabling the creation of numerous parallel chains, known as shards.
These shards usually share the network workload when there is heightened activity thus significantly boosting transaction speeds while keeping costs low.
This functionality is critical as DeFi apps usually have high activity, comprising several low value transactions. It will also significantly lower the barriers of entry into the space with its negligible fees and fast confirmation times that are ideal for the unbanked and underbanked.
- Wrapping services
Radix has partnered with the Ren Alliance to bring wrapping services to its platform. Wrapping involves the reproduction of a cryptocurrency/token from another blockchain by creating its replica on the native chain using the same data. This feature enables the interoperability of various digital assets from different chains and allows users to easily transfer the replica token as they would on its native blockchain.
This innovative feature adds to Radix versatility, making it more suitable for the DeFi space by bridging the gap between various decentralised networks. It also makes it easier for existing apps to migrate to Radix as they can easily wrap the existing tokens in a decentralised manner without losing any critical functionality.
- Dev incentives
Radix is offering incentives through its Developer Royalties System that provides financial rewards for contributors on their ecosystem. The decentralised, self-incentivising, on-ledger system allows developers to earn on a continuous basis for helping grow the platform by creating useful programs. This system is beneficial to the entire ecosystem as projects can deploy the already existing code into their applications at a small fee thus significantly cutting down costs and saving time. On their end, users get early access to new DeFi apps in addition to earning from their contributions in the development process.
Radix recent developments
Radix recently completed its token sale, raising over $12.7 million in the process. The sale was closed on Oct 22, much earlier than anticipated, after hitting the target within just two weeks, a testament of the community’s belief in the project. 652 participants from 67 countries took part in the token sale, showing proper decentralisation of the project with a global reach.
Following the successful sale, Radix is set to distribute an additional 200 million eXRD ($7.8M at the token sale price of $0.039) to their community. This will begin on Nov. 17 and run for 180 days.
The distribution will be made on Uniswap with an aim to incentivise liquidity provision by growing the Radix community and boosting its use across the DeFi sector.
These are very huge earnings and some of the most attractive returns in the DeFi space that make Radix a viable investment and a project to keep an eye on as they promise more exciting developments in the near future.