🏠

Main article: History of Radix

Radix has adopted an incremental release strategy, building its platform from the ground up rather than copying existing approaches. This strategy allowed the team to test each level of functionality in a live environment while maintaining compatibility with future developments.

Since the Radix Production Network (RPN) naming convention was dropped, all releases are named after wonders of the ancient world, expanded beyond the traditional Seven Wonders to include Xi’an, a city in China where the Terracotta Army was found.

A test on a 2019 implementation called Tempo achieved over 1.4m tps on 1187 nodes.

From the Xi’an release, scheduled for 2024, Radix will use a fixed shard space of 2^256 shards, with responsibility over the shard space orchestrated by ‘shard groups’ of validators, allowing transaction throughput to scale linearly with the number of nodes.

Tests using Radix’s Cassandra cross-shard, atomically composable testnet and the Cerberus consensus mechanism have shown promise in being able to host and serve website data as well as ledger state:

Main article: Radix Mainnet (Olympia)

Olympia was the first Radix Mainnet. It was released on the 28th of July, 2021 and was the first implementation of the Radix Engine execution environment, the Cerberus consensus protocol (unsharded), and the native $XRD token.

Main article: Radix Developer Environment (Alexandria)

This was a major upgrade that occurred during December 2021 that provided preliminary tools for building blueprints and components using the Scrypto language.

Main article: Radix Mainnet (Babylon)

The Babylon release will debut blueprints and components / smart contracts, allowing true decentralized apps (’dApps’) on Radix. It is also expected to include staking changes and validator management improvements, among other updates.

Main article: Radix Mainnet (Xi’an)

This upgrade will add the fully sharded Cerberus consensus mechanism allowing for linear scaling over time.

Radix is a permissionless network of nodes that maintains a pre-sharded structure of 2^256 substates. Changes to those substates (i.e. transactions) are validated by dynamically assigned nodes and signed with a cryptographic hash.

Main article: Delegated Proof of Stake

Radix nodes are instances of the radixnode software. The recommended method to run a node is via the radixnode CLI tool, which may be run on any Linux or Ubuntu system.

The validator set is currently limited to 100 for the Alexandria release but will eventually support an unlimited number of validator nodes upon the release of Xi’an.

Radix's token issuance was in two distinct stages:

Stage 2 added 5.19bn $XRD followed by a 300m yearly emission up to a maximum of 12bn emitted over a 40 year period. There will be an additional 2.4bn fixed allocation to a Stable Coin Reserve.

The naming of $XRD follows international rules ISO 4217 and ISO 3166, which prescribe that commodities and currencies not backed by nations begin with X and national country codes may not begin with an X, respectively.

Saul Klein, co-founder of LocalGlobe invested $1 million in Radix DLT in 2018.

As of mid-2023, Radix has not yet been listed on Coinbase. Coinbase requires a Rosetta API interface before adding a new DLT. Radix's new gateway/core API provides basic Rosetta functionality, but more work is needed for full compatibility. No timeline or priority for this enhancement has been disclosed.

While the Instabridge itself is free, there is a small amount of Ethereum gas required to remove eXRD from the Ethereum network.

Radix is actively working on obtaining appropriate licenses to offer more on-ramps to XRD via Instabridge, which is also undergoing a user interface improvement. KYC will still be required for these on-ramps as all legitimate ways of entering or leaving the crypto market will require KYC.

For issues related to Instabridge, users should contact support@instabridge.io. Instabridge may perform a manual verification process before completing a transfer, which can be slow or delayed, particularly over weekends.

The safest method for US citizens to acquire XRD is to purchase eXRD from a decentralized exchange (DEX) like Uniswap or DeFi Plaza and use Instabridge, which requires KYC/AML compliance. Rumors suggest the next version of Instabridge may support XRD on-ramps, but no official information or ETA is available.

US exchanges are on the roadmap for Radix, although details cannot be revealed due to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). In the meantime, users in the US can acquire XRD via Instabridge, which requires Know Your Customer (KYC) verification.

Radix supports decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and aims to comply with regulatory requirements, including those set by FinCEN (US regulatory body). The platform is designed to address the legal implications and challenges faced by DEXs under US law, ensuring a secure and compliant environment for users.