--- title: "History of Radix" path: "/contents/history/history-of-radix" bannerImage: "https://j9ytchrzkvqpcul7.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/313798b8-eb46-44d8-aa04-6de5e5b4aa77.jpeg" version: "1.3.0" author: "Hydrate" createdAt: "2026-02-06T21:19:46.143Z" updatedAt: "2026-03-16T18:25:42.750Z" --- # History of Radix | **Founded** | 2013 (as eMunie) | | **Founder** | [Dan Hughes](/community/dan-hughes) (1974–2025) | | **Company** | [RDX Works](/ecosystem/rdx-works) | | **Mainnet [Olympia](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog/radix-olympia-launch)** | July 2021 | | **Mainnet [Babylon](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog/radix-babylon-launch)** | September 2023 | | **Next Upgrade** | [Xi'an](/ideas/xian-protocol-upgrade) (targeting 2027) | ## Origins (2013–2017) **[Dan Hughes](/community/dan-hughes)** began working on what would become Radix in 2013 under the name [eMunie](/contents/tech/research/emunie). His goal was to create a decentralized ledger capable of scaling to serve the entire world's financial transactions — a problem he recognized existing blockchains could never solve with their single-threaded architectures. Hughes explored numerous consensus approaches over several years, including [Tempo](/contents/tech/research/tempo-consensus-mechanism), a DAG-based consensus mechanism. These early experiments laid the groundwork for understanding the fundamental requirements of a scalable distributed ledger: parallelism, deterministic execution, and composability. ## [Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol) and [RDX Works](/ecosystem/rdx-works) (2018–2020) By 2018, Hughes and the growing team developed [Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol), a novel [BFT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault) consensus protocol that braids consensus across shards, enabling unlimited parallelism while preserving atomic composability. The [Cerberus whitepaper](/contents/tech/research/cerberus-whitepaper) was published in 2020 and underwent academic peer review. The company was formalized as [RDX Works](/ecosystem/rdx-works), with offices in London. The team grew to include specialists in distributed systems, programming language design, and formal verification. ## [Olympia](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog/radix-olympia-launch) Mainnet (2021) The [Olympia mainnet](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-olympia) launched in July 2021, establishing the [Radix network](https://www.radixdlt.com) with basic token transfers and staking. While [Olympia](https://learn.radixdlt.com/article/what-was-radixs-olympia-mainnet) was intentionally limited in scope (no smart contracts), it demonstrated the network's validator infrastructure and [XRD tokenomics](/contents/tech/core-protocols/xrd-token). ## [Babylon](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog/radix-babylon-launch) Mainnet (2023) The [Babylon upgrade](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-babylon) in September 2023 was Radix's transformative release, introducing: - **[Scrypto](/contents/tech/core-protocols/scrypto-programming-language)** — Radix's [asset-oriented](/developers/legacy-docs/essentials/asset-oriented) programming language - **[Radix Engine](/contents/tech/core-protocols/radix-engine)** — deterministic execution environment with [native assets](https://learn.radixdlt.com/article/what-are-native-assets) - **[Transaction Manifests](/contents/tech/core-protocols/transaction-manifests)** — human and machine readable transactions - **[Smart Accounts](/contents/tech/core-protocols/smart-accounts)** — programmable accounts with [access rules](https://docs.radixdlt.com/docs/authorization) - **[Radix Wallet](/contents/tech/core-protocols/radix-wallet)** — with [Personas](/contents/tech/core-protocols/personas) and dApp connections [Babylon](https://learn.radixdlt.com/article/what-is-radixs-babylon-mainnet) enabled the rapid growth of a [DeFi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_finance) ecosystem including [CaviarNine](/ecosystem/caviarnine), [Ociswap](/ecosystem/ociswap), [Weft Finance](/ecosystem/weft-finance), and dozens of other projects. ## [Dan Hughes](/community/dan-hughes) (1974–2025) Dan Hughes, the founder and visionary behind Radix, passed away on **July 27, 2025**. His death was a profound loss for the Radix community and the broader distributed systems field. Hughes had dedicated over a decade to solving the scalability trilemma, and his work on [Cerberus consensus](https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.04450) represents one of the most significant contributions to distributed ledger research. In the months following his passing, the Radix community demonstrated remarkable resilience: - The [Radix Accountability Council](/ideas/radix-accountability-council) was established through community election - [Hyperscale-RS](/ideas/hyperscale-rs-community), a community-led implementation, continued development - The [Xi'an roadmap](/ideas/xian-protocol-upgrade) was maintained and advanced by Radix Labs - The [DeFi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_finance) ecosystem continued to grow and mature Hughes' vision of a scalable, composable, [asset-oriented](/developers/legacy-docs/essentials/asset-oriented) ledger lives on in the protocol he created and the community he inspired. ## Road to Xi'an (2025–2027) The [Hyperscale 500k TPS test](/ideas/hyperscale-500k-test) in late 2025 validated the scalability thesis. Led by team member Timan after Dan's passing, the test demonstrated 500,000+ sustained TPS across 590+ nodes on commodity hardware. With the [open-sourcing of Hyperscale code](/ideas/hyperscale-open-source) and the [Cuttlefish protocol upgrade](/ideas/cuttlefish-upgrade) adding subintents, Radix is progressing toward [Xi'an](/ideas/xian-protocol-upgrade) — the fully sharded mainnet that will deliver Dan Hughes' original vision of a ledger that scales to serve the world. ## External Links - [Radix DLT Official Website](https://www.radixdlt.com) - [Radix Blog](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog) - [Radix GitHub](https://github.com/radixdlt) - [Cerberus Whitepaper](/contents/tech/research/cerberus-whitepaper) - [Consensus Evolution at Radix](/contents/tech/research/consensus-evolution)