The LINIX project is a blockchain startup, well sort of, they’re building a new hybrid between a blockchain and a direct acyclic graph (‘DAG’).
DAGs are different to blockchains and are able to provide some notable advantages in the areas of scalability for example. We are used to hearing about one or the other, a blockchain or a DAG startup, however LINIX have decided to pursue the best of both.
LINIX refer to themselves as ‘The World’s First DAG-infused Blockchain’, and that’s what we are going to unpack in this report.
Blockchains and DAGs
It’s probably best to start with some high-level background on blockchains and DAGs. We have become accustomed to hearing about new, faster, better, more secure blockchain startups over the past 24 months.
Over that time, we have also been introduce to several high quality and promising DAG projects. DAGs have been touted as being a threat to the blockchain design; having the potential to supersede the still nascent technology.
If you’re not familiar with DAGs, let’s start by naming some of the most prominent startups that you might have heard of:
IOTA: Rank 17 by market capitalization
Nano (previously RaiBlocks): Rank 44 by market capitalization
FANTOM: Rank 129 on by market capitalization
The LINIX team present some issues for choosing either a traditional blockchain protocol or the lesser known DAG structure. They make mention of the concerns surrounding blockchain structure scalability; this is a core and well-known issue for many current blockchain iterations. Countless projects are basing their value propositions on making their design faster, better, more secure than the rest.
DAGs present a unique design capable of scalability in tandem with fast processing of transactions.
LINIX DAG-infused blockchain
The LINIX team propose a combination of two traditionally distinct and somewhat opposing designs — The Matrix Chain (the name will make sense later).
The team have designed a completely new decentralized and trustless framework utilizing their hybrid DAG-blockchain, ‘State Matrices’, and a Proof-of-Stake (‘PoS’) based overlay to achieve finality.
The design concept involves using a DAG structure to record transactions in a highly scalable manner, whilst storing snapshots of the global system state as a ‘State Matrix’ at the end of each ‘period’ anchored to a traditional blockchain structure, as illustrated above.
A key consideration in reviewing this design is the implications on user-experience when interacting with dApps built on this underlying structure. Having transactions relayed to a DAG data structure makes possible low latency for end-users and if implemented in reality as the theory suggest in the LINIX documentation, this would be great for larger-scale adoption of distributed ledger applications.
State Matrix
In reading the LINIX resources, you will come across the term ‘State Matrix’ or ‘State Matrices’ many times.
So what is this state matrix about and how does it tie into the design?
As detailed by LINIX, the state matrix can be conceptualized as a snapshot of the global system state at a particular point in time. This snapshot details account information regarding individual addresses, assets and transactions. At the end of x period the transactions and changes throughout the network are taken as a snapshot and used to construct the next state matrix ‘StMPOST’.
The previous snapshot is logically called ‘StMPRED’, representing the previous state matrix. This might make the aforementioned hybrid topology illustration make a little bit more sense.
The State Matrix system allows for the network to effectively keep track of the current state and ensure finality.
For the sake of this report being concise and not requiring a bachelor in computer science as a prerequisite, we will not delve further in to the technical details of the infrastructure design.
As always, more for detailed reading, see the LINIX resources online.
Key distinctions
The proposed architecture from LINIX will present a state of explicit finality of transactions which will be finalized into a State Matrix, as discussed above.
The DAG design supports the UTXO (unspent transaction output) model of transactions (utilized by the Bitcoin blockchain), whilst in combination with the State Matrices, still supports the account/balance system (utilized by the Ethereum blockchain) allowing for Smart Contract integration. Essentially LINIX are trying to again combine the best of both worlds.
Staking deposits allows for malicious ‘witnesses’ to be penalized.
Competition
As highlighted in the beginning of this post, there are a series of popular DAG-based ledger projects currently active in the crypto-markets. Likewise of course, there are even more purely blockchain-based designs.
As far as competition, perhaps it isn’t really worth shortlisting any particular startups, as LINIX are really putting themselves in competition with any blockchain or DAG-based ledger with a goal of enabling speed, security and scalability in their design on the road to mass-adoption. A common goal among tens or even hundreds of active projects today.
Token metrics
- CODE: LNX
- TYPE: ERC20
- TOTAL SUPPLY: 2,473,750,000 LNX
- FUNDRAISING: Public
- ALLOCATION TO PUBLIC SALE: 40%
- PRICE PER CBIX: $0.02
- PUBLIC SALE HARDCAP: $16.4m USD
- PUBLIC SALE DATE: June 20, 2019
Total LNX token distribution
- Advisors: 5%
- Marketing: 8%
- Research & Development: 10%
- Team & Founders: 10%
- Reserve: 12%
- Ecosystem: 15%
- Token sale: 40%
Team
Jay Lee [Founder & Director of IR]
Jay grew up in Israel, before graduating from Korea’s Yonsei University with a Bachelor of Business. After study, Jay was involved in various startups in the logistics and supply chain and consulting industries. Jay has been involved in the crypto-sphere for over three years and brings experience in his capacity as a marketer, promoter and investor relations expert.
Henry Duong [Head Researcher]
Henry comes from an academic background having studied mathematics and engineering at the University of California Berkeley. After, Henry went on to study algorithms and mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, but then left study to begin at Microsoft in Washington.
Henry attributes his interest in blockchain to the synergies of blockchain technology and algorithms.
Roadmap
Q1 2019: Release technical whitepaper, open source, IEO
Q2 2019: Testnet launch, LINIX Virtual Machine, dApp incubation, LINIX Conference
Q4 2019: Mainnet launch
Summary
LINIX present a unique take on the traditional framework of designing either of a blockchain or DAG, by creating their own hybrid DAG-infused blockchain — the Matrix Chain.
The vision is clear and presents obvious benefits in combining both the individual blockchain and DAG designs.
To read more, check out LINIX’s resources and social media:
- Website: linix.foundation
- Twitter: twitter.com/linixfoundation
- Telegram: t.me/linixfoundation
Website
https://www.dbcrypto.io
Twitter
https://www.twitter.com/dbcryptoteam
Telegram
https://www.t.me/dbcryptochat
This report was written using publicly available information and some information was corroborated by the team. Thank you to the LINIX team for supporting our work and sponsoring this report.
