An Easy Intro to the Nexus Tritium Protocol
Akechi Mitsuhide and Gabriel Galt
Sekigahara Research Group
The Nexus Tritium Protocol is a major upgrade to the Nexus Earth ecosystem with changes that make the Nexus blockchain, wallet, and cryptocurrency more user-friendly for the masses. Among the findings that most impressed the Sekigahara Research team is how Nexus Earth is going out of its way to make its products and ecosystem easier for small and large businesses to use. Nexus Tritium update and its many new bells and whistles, including signature chains, advanced contract platform, and enhanced wallet features, are very clearly geared to add value to businesses of all industries. This sets them apart from the majority of amateurs and snake oil salesmen that seem to saturate the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector.
Another key factor that makes Nexus stand out is, unlike the majority of white papers we’ve read in the course of our research, Nexus doesn’t try to sell potential users or investors on a dream. Everything written about in the Nexus Tritium White Paper is already being developed by a passionate team putting in long hours for a product they’re truly proud of. The widespread adoption of the Nexus blockchain, wallets, and cryptocurrency by users around the globe since the company’s launch in 2014 shows that Nexus Earth has both commercial viability and staying power. The Nexus development team is quite open about their progress with a community on Telegram (@nexusearth) and Slack, and they’re open to questions and new innovative ideas.
The Nexus Tritium Software Stack
Think of basic software as a single auto mechanic. He can do a lot of things, but it will take him a while to finish a car if he’s working by himself. Think of software stacks as a racing pit crew with multiple team members, each with a different specialty, but all working together at the same time for the same car and brand. Now, imagine that pit crew was made of robots that always travel with the car and never get tired. Similarly, a software stack is a set of subsystems or sub-components needed to make the software work independently of any other subsystems or components. Think of all those frustrating times you installed new software only for it to tell you that you need to install Flash Player, or Adobe Reader, or you need to create an account with DocuSign. The Nexus Tritium Protocol software stack has all the necessary components built in so users don’t need any other programs or software to get the maximum use out of the Tritium protocol, followed by Amine and Obsidian protocol upgrades that will create the Nexus 3-Dimensional Chain..
The Nexus Tritium Protocol software stack has seven distinct layers: Network, Ledger, Register, Operation, API, Logical, and Interface. The real beauty of the user-friendliness of the software stack is in the API layer. API (Application Programming Interface) is a development interface that carries a user’s command requests and sends back a response from the blockchain. API lets users interact with a particular layer on the software stack without knowing anything about the other layers. For example, making changes in one layer won’t screw up the coding in other layers. By making customized changes on one layer, those changes are instantly reflected in the others in a standardized format instead of users having to manually make the necessary changes in all other layers. This is comparable to early Windows PCs allowing users to click icons instead of having to learn DOS commands.
Nexus GUI Wallet
APIs will interact with other operation codes on the Interface layer. This is the layer that stores Nexus’ upcoming GUI wallet, which is compatible with smart contracts. The old Bitcoin-based Nexus QT wallet tied the GUI (graphical user interface) to daemon-level operations, slowing down the whole process. In contrast, Nexus’ daemon will run in the background, alone and independently of the User Interface (UI) , avoiding these unnecessary slowdowns. More easily visible will be the new buttons for popular functions so users don’t have to hunt so much for what they’re trying to do. For this reason alone, Nexus Earth fans can’t wait for the Nexus GUI wallet release.
Nexus Advanced Contracts
One of the most talked-about aspects of the Nexus Tritium Protocol is the ability to create advanced contracts within the Nexus ecosystem. The method to the magic is that traditional smart contracts, made mainstream by Ethereum users, run on Turing-complete languages. In the past, any program or interface that didn’t speak Turing-complete languages was incompatible with Ethereum smart contracts, and — this is what bothered people the most — incompatible with Ethereum-based tokens.
Thanks to the API and related developments on the Nexus blockchain, further innovations are now open to any programming language. This line of innovative developments will effectively raise the industry standard. In plain English, users aren’t restricted to smart contracts built on Turing-specific languages, but can build on the existing Nexus Earth ecosystem using any language. Through the Nexus advanced contract platform, business owners and managers can create any kind of programmable incentives for their employees, suppliers, and customers. This is a major game-changer everywhere, since Nexus smart contracts mean Ethereum will no longer be the biggest kid on the block.
Nexus Earth 3-Dimensional Blockchain
The acronym 3DC stands for “three-dimensional chain.” Think of a standard blockchain as everything having to do with a highway, including the road, cars, trucks, freight, toll booths, and even plans for future side roads springing from that highway. The highway could be the blockchain’s underlying network. The toll booths record which cars have come and gone in each direction. The cars and trucks coming or going are the various requests and responses traveling through the blockchain. The state routs, county roads, and small town main streets connecting with the highway in different directions are the side chains growing from the blockchain, while the smart contracts are the laws in particular towns that begin and end at their municipal borders.
If the old blockchain prototype is comparable to a standard one-lane highway, then Nexus is the superhighway of the future. Imagine a major highway with its multiple lanes, capacity for higher levels of traffic, and of course, the many side roads and communities that connect with the interstate highway. Now, imagine that the superhighway in some places becomes a double-decker road like San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, but even more audacious. Imagine in addition to the extra levels of paved highway, there are extra lanes and toll booths heading up toward the sky in different directions. Because there are more small cars than large trucks, and the different vehicle types travel at different speeds, old “highways” like the Bitcoin blockchain had regular issues with head-of-line blocking — the horrendous event when multiple lanes have to converge for one toll booth, and freight trucks (large transactions) block all the small cars (small transactions) behind. In the Nexus 3DC, there will be three distinct types of toll booths — one for cars, one for freight vehicles, and one for large trucks carrying cars.
The Tritium protocol increases processing speed through parallel processing on the Nexus blockchain. Like the 3D highway described above, with its multiple levels of paved road and sky lanes, the 3DC’s parallel processing capabilities allow information to flow through any open lane, thus avoiding bottlenecks. Bottlenecks are a common occurrence with blockchains, as they grow with piles and piles of mounting transaction records. Transactions require more and more data to be processed and hashed, just like populations grow and cars clog up the roads, prompting people to move out of state. That’s why, for several weeks in 2017, Bitcoin processing fees were obscenely high and took several hours to fully confirm. The Nexus 3DC blockchain eliminates the information traffic jams by providing exponentially more open passageways. Nexus’ 3DC “autobahn” aims to never allow traffic jams to happen. The 3DC is slated to go live with the third TAO update, which is Obsidian.
Signature Chains, LISP, and Security Improvements
Blockchain security is a constant concern, with thieves and con artists lurking at every corner in digital spaces. Nexus Tritium’s improved security features offer solutions to this recurring problem. In the software stack’s Ledger layer, the heart and lungs of the blockchain, Signature Chains are introduced to increase security for all Nexus transactions. Thanks to the Tritium protocol’s upgrade of the current system, users no longer need a wallet.dat to hold their private keys; instead, they can simply access their blockchain by entering their username, password, and PIN keys, as if they were logging into their Steemit accounts. The Ledger layer is where the nodes interact within the PoS (Proof-of-Stake) consensus channel. The Ledger is where nodes build up or degrade their Trust/Reputation. The higher the Trust level, the higher the PoS staking rewards. Therefore, Nexus community members have an incentive to secure the network by just running their wallet.
The status of Signature Chains is recorded in the Register layer. “Signature Chains” is really just a fancy way of describing digital IDs within the blockchain ecosystem. For example, John Doe’s particular signature chain holds information specific to him, like his NXS wallet balance. The Operation layer contains the basic transactional functions like crediting or debiting an account balance or transferring permissions and rights — all the information relevant for Accounts Payable and Receivable. Through the Network and Register layers working together, Nexus smart contracts can be processed locally instead of in more centralized ways, improving overall scalability on the platform.
The Network layer introduces multicast functionality, where Nexus will use Multicast Locking Groups . With the Unicast Flood Networks used by all blockchains today, data has to be processed and relayed through all the nodes in a network. Think of the shopping malls that make sure their security guards patrol the whole property by making each guard scan every barcode strategically placed around the mall. Each security guard rides his Segway around, scanning every last barcode to prove to his managers that the mall is completely patrolled. It takes a lot of time and energy for that security guard to do his job under the rules of his contract.
Once the security guard checks one bar-code, it only secures the one store and not the rest of the stores. That first store gets the priority of his time and energy. Why can’t the guard check them all at one time? Imagine that he could! Similarly, the Multicast Locking Groups allow for data to be processed on local nodes instead of all the nodes in a network. The Multicast Locking Groups make Nexus even more decentralized and more secure at the same time. For example, the Network layer only moves packets, but it doesn’t know the type of packets, and some shady characters might try to take advantage of that. However, whatever they try to tamper with in the API simply won’t carry over into the Network layer. This is meant to ensure neutrality, efficiency, and fairness when using a shared resource.
This innovation is made feasible by each node having its own endpoint ID (EID) thanks to the LISP overlay. Crypto-EIDs are hashes of public-keys where the mapping system stores public-keys and performs message verification through the LISP overlay. The LISP overlay allows that secure information to be scrambled and descrambled. These additional levels of blockchain cybersecurity protection are aimed at fraud prevention, like IP spoofing. The Sekigahara Research team eagerly awaits to see how well they work when the LISP overlay and crypto-EIDs are applied with Tritium as LISP is already running on some of the Nexus nodes.
Integrating user feedback for new possibilities
One of the other key factors setting Nexus apart from other ongoing blockchain projects is the level of openness and interaction between the Nexus crew and their community of users. Nexus not only regularly informs and interacts with users on Telegram, Slack, Discord, and other platforms, but also facilitates business collaboration during the development process so that the technology meets the end user preferences. The Logical layer is the level of the Tritium software stack that lets developers build their own applications using the Nexus framework. This is important because businesses can develop their own Nexus applications that serve their specific needs! Remember the innumerable innovations in cryptocurrency and blockchain-based apps made possible just by Ethereum smart contracts. Through a variety of both pre-defined and open source applications made available by the Nexus community, independent developers will be able to raise the bar for what’s possible in Nexus-based apps.
The wave of innovative developments presented in the Nexus Tritium Protocol has effectively raised the industry standard for cryptocurrency and blockchain projects. The empowerment of local node networks increases the decentralization of the Nexus ecosystem, which is exactly what the nonprofit organization wants. While the GUI wallet certainly promises to be more user-friendly, the most excitement zeroes in on the new possibilities opened by smart contracts. Thanks to API, users can build on the existing Nexus Earth ecosystem using any programming language. This is a major game-changer everywhere, since Nexus smart contracts mean Ethereum no longer rules the arena.
Between the improved ease of use from the software stack’s multiple functions and capabilities, and the inclusiveness that allows users to experiment, build, and improve on this advanced platform, Nexus Earth continues to prove its staying power as a company striving to supply consumer demands. This wave of new innovations could have major implications for amateur programmers and blockchain entrepreneurs in the developing world, especially after Nexus Earth technology eventually provides high speed satellite WiFi to users across the world. The stars truly are the limit.
