Nexus Development Report Q4 2020

As we close out Q4 of 2020, we look back on this year of global disruption with open hearts, conscious minds, and humble confidence as we continue our journey to a decentralized future. The development team established ambitious goals when Tritium ++ was originally defined and the majority of necessary features are nearing finality. Though our focus shifted slightly based on revived opportunities and unforeseen variables, our team and our community have much to look forward to, including some special surprises along the way.

Tritium ++ releases are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2021, but before we discuss that, let’s first take a look back at the accomplishments of 2020…

• Constant time database achieved
• Mobile wallet (lite node) in beta testing
• Several desktop wallet enhancements completed (lite node started)
• First and only @bubble blockchain plugin
• Pooled staking code complete and being finalized
• Hybrid mode public/private mainnet piloting (@BEFLimited)
• API enhancements delivered, more on the way
• Invoice DApp module and improvements released
• Nexus Protocol (NP) White Paper released
• LX-OS architecture defined & engineering underway
• GPS-based Stateless Routing System architecture defined
• Tokenized Satellite acceleration
• Several use cases developing & testing (Adoption pipeline matrix included)
• Exchanges: @pionex_com, many swap platforms and major DEX progress
• Website updates & new block explorer
• Numerous interviews, articles & guides
• Ambassador and developer quarterly reports established
• Social Structure for DAO actively being investigated by the ambassador and developer teams.

Thank you all for the continued commitment especially during these turbulent times! We’re looking forward to an astronomical 2021!

Current Blockchain Metrics

The below graphics are referenced from the Nexus Blockchain Explorer Metrics section showing mining difficulty statistics on the blockchain for the previous week. Please visit the Nexus Blockchain Explorer or NXS Orbital Scan website for updated and additional blockchain information.

Examining the number of tokens, accounts, names and similar values can provide greater insight into the development activity on a blockchain. The following charts reflect key metrics as they were captured during each quarter of 2020.

Included below is the raw information pulled from a full node using the System Application Programming Interface (API) functions, specifically the “system/get/metrics” command.

GitHub can be another great gauge for the level of development activity. It’s clearly not a timely or ultimate indicator as many tasks, activities and related work are done offline until ready to be merged. This is especially true considering extra-curricular developer activities such as consulting, onboarding and piloting new DApp projects as well as innovating with satellite, terrestrial mesh networks and similar special projects worked in parallel.

The below charts are pulled from the Nexusoft GitHub repository insights pages. LLL-TAO, LLL-OS and React redux module have received the most activity although additional progress for other portions of the project are reflected on the website respectively. Weeks showing the most activity during the current quarter are highlighted.

LLL-TAO contributions to merge

LLL-OS contributions to merge

React redux module template contributions to master

Development Updates and Accomplishments

11/19/20 — A great tweet from @deep_seekers below.

“Unlike hardware routers which lack ARP packet authentication, allowing spoofing of routing locators, #Nexus software router design enables full#cybersecurity via stateless routing w/complete OSI stack authentication.@NexusOfficial surpassing industry BKM’s yet again. $NXS”

11/20/20 — LLD Update provided by Colin on Twitter.

“Here’s a side by side comparison with Google’s LevelDB (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) and Nexus’s LLD. The LLD is fully constant time, or in other words it doesn’t slow down as you add more data to it. This is one reason blockchains don’t scale, because they use LevelDB. $NXS #LLD”

11/21/20 — Some intense thoughts from @deep_seekers again.

“CIA-backed tech will be replaced with people-backed distributed tech.@NexusOfficial shows great promise to this task. #Nexus Safenet will replace the Internet, NexOS will replace Windows/Linux, and much more. A decentralized self-sovereignty-based IOT is on the way. $NXS”

12/16/20 — Developer Zoom Update

• Colin provided a brief summary on Tritium ++ release expectations, these are being planned for early 2021, no firm dates. Significant insight is provided behind the testing methodologies, rationalization and lessons learned on the journey to constant time.

LLD performance continues to improve, 450k reads and 250k writes per sec were achieved just from switching from file streams to memory mapping (150/100k R/W formerly)! Memory mapping was excluded from early evaluation to aid in isolation of hidden bottlenecks during load tests.

This is a monumental achievement with implications for not just Tritium and Nexus but also the architecture of a decentralized world. In the legacy world, a 10% performance improvement is seen as a respectable increase, the LLD achieved 300% overall!

• There are two types of sharding, data and process. Process sharding is more challenging and involves L1 and L2 development that will occur in Obsidian. Data sharding is essentially breaking the DB into fractional subsets instead of all nodes maintaining the entire blockchain. If there are 10 shards on a 10 GB blockchain network then only 1 GB will be required to run a sharded node. Ultimately, there will be 3 types of nodes: full, sharded and lite with the latter only containing Signature Chain (SigChain) data and blockchain headers. Included below is a common blockchain sharding design.

Source: Coinrivet

• Transactions involving data on a typical remote sharding design may incur slight latency however this is being taken into consideration with the LLD through common interface functionality. The key seek function enhancements included will greatly enhance overall scalability even when combined with longevity.
• Efforts to extend the LLD, specifically memory mapping, catalyzed the Nexus DataBase (NDB), a sharded DB and RESTful interface design for deployment of scalable Decentralized Applications (DApps). The NDB is an important pillar in the framework for an unlimited internet of potential, not just blockchain niches.
• At the code level, LLD sharding algorithms are being developed using hashmaps as a primary option. This shouldn’t take much time as the team has already developed the HTTP packet, LLP and embedded DB storage engine so minimal work remains to bring the NDB to life. Overall coding for this component is done, minus debugging and hardening. Sharding will be introduced to the mainnet by way of the NDB.
• The NDB, an LLD distributed file system enabling storage monetization, will come before the satellites are launched. The entire architecture will be running in a production state before constellations are in orbit. This work actually started with the data sharding and Colin is expecting to begin experimental dual-shard mode soon that will greatly increase capacity. A video overview is planned for later this year after hardening and finalization.
• NDB can be utilized as a standalone service with a HTTP JSON API semantics. It will start out with key values in Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability (ACID), then will eventually roll in relational, SQL and others as priority dictates.

ACID principles in RDBMS Architecture

Source: ALC Training, Australia

• Paul indicates it could be advantageous to package NDB up with a LevelDB interface, making it compatible with many other existing blockchains. This would essentially supply a standalone LLL package to allow other projects to drop in the NDB to evaluate performance variables. Additionally, a white paper could be included to articulate the new architecture, integrations and improvement expectations. This could serve multiple purposes by enhancing developer interactions/feedback and Nexus’ contribution to the open source community. Komodo has expressed interest previously and is a likely candidate for collaboration. They are interested in producing a high-scaling DApp solution and these components could make this a reality.
• NDB could theoretically scale to the billions. Although from a centralized perspective, WordPress with 100k requests per second is probably a more reasonable threshold for initial evaluation. Using this as an example, a small server cluster will be required however this size could easily be served with the NDB. This is where sharding becomes important, especially if there are bandwidth or other resource contentions.
• The network can be designed with two, four or as many shards that are necessary to serve 100k+ clients in a round robin fashion or perform a hashing function to determine the appropriate connection. Essentially, NDB will perform automated shard clustering functions that can be multiplied into massive decentralized server clusters if necessary.

Round Robin Load Balancing

Source: Citrix Documentation

• Sharding redundancy is currently planned using identifiers, so new nodes can cluster automatically or manually establish a connection via identifier authentication. Minimal user interaction will be necessary early with full automation being the ultimate goal.
• Paul indicated there have previously been discussions around tidying up the LLL, as well to decouple it from the code and independently released. This was originally standalone, however as the Tritium stack evolved much of that code went into the LLL. Colin also mentioned moving the LLD templates into respective layers as part of this effort. Overall, establishing an isolated LLL will have numerous benefits moving forward.
• The LLL, LLD and LLP combine to formulate the blockchain operating system, LX-OS, which stands for [L][Lower Level Library, L4 Microkernel, LISP] > [X][NeXus] > [OS][Operating System]. The LX-OS is protected by the 3DC that serves as a foundation for the manifestation of the Nexus Protocol (NP) white paper released on December 21st, 2020.

• Reflecting back on lessons learned with Galactic Sky, redundancy and decentralization requirements ring the loudest. Previously, an engineer was hired to perform case study on satellite decentralization however they concluded this was impossible. With legacy technology and limited trustless infrastructure experience the constellation design began to fade and went idle as Vector dissolved.
• Fast forward to the lockdown, a visit with Nathan Hauk (Ambassador) led to the discovery of phased array antennas that addressed a variety of historical problems breathing life back into the tokenized satellite segment! With this component NP can now supply the fundamental elements of the broader architecture required for the vast array of protections, contentious implications and value propositions during the turbulent transition to a world of decentralization. This white paper solidifies the vision outlined by Colin over four years ago.

Phased Array Antenna (8x8) beam forming

Source: Nexus Protocol White Paper

• The positioning and timing couldn’t be better, IoT and microsatellites are rapidly emerging thus exposing the difficulty of designing secure software-defined satellites. This has not been done before, Galactic Sky was one attempt resulting in a firefight between Lockheed Martin and Vector over patent rights. Fortunately, Nexus is shielded from these types of litigious situations allowing the true vision of microsatellites in a way that is practical with a simplistic interface. This is the first of its kind, not just the truly decentralized internet, but how the satellites are deployed with incentives and ISM frequencies for instance.
• Iot industry will be a priority early relative to the LX-OS and the importance of this implementation cannot be emphasized enough. The security surrounding this market is horrendous, and the acceleration of the IoT industry is unprecedented. This can be more broadly considered part of the industrial innovator’s dilemma and 4th industrial revolution.

Soft PLCs: The industrial innovator’s dilemma

Source: IoT Analytics

• Our consumer market is going to be directly associated with the satellite constellations and IoT implementations. The first phase will cement the operating system as the foundation for the initial deployments. As more compatibility emerges with IoT devices, justification for commercial desktop installations as a primary operating environment will improve.
• This will create a secure foundation and module framework value proposition for the IoT industry using LX-OS as an embedded common interface. A P2P communications module currently being developed for Nexus full and lite nodes could be ported to LX-OS, for example. Some examples of these in centralized capacities are Telegram, Apple Airdrop or similar that often have security/privacy problems and difficulty remaining stable.
• IoT industry members are already expressing interest, this reinforces justification to improve Nexus attendance at security focused venues like Defcon and similar conferences to accelerate penetration into all market verticals with familiar vehicles. These events will provide the opportunity for Nexus hackathons and workshops to further prove security properties, diversify outreach, expand portfolios and refine open source contributions.
• The ambassador and development teams have been working together on new project engagements exploring use cases. The ambassadors will gradually take on more responsibilities to alleviate the development teams involvement moving forward. An adoption pipeline matrix is being used to track associated variables anonymously for public consumption. This matrix will be provided on the ambassador quarterly reports in 2021 however an early version is depicted below.

• Micro-kernels are essentially servers managing Inter-Process Communications (IPC), file/process servers for instance. The LLP is going to be leveraged as an experiment to dive into the seL4 API and perform lower level protocol functions for operating system IPC. Then the LLP can be used for network based communication seamlessly connecting a transitioning world with common protocols and frameworks.

Source: Nexus Protocol White Paper

• The NP, LX-OS and IoT design dovetails into patent systems for intellectual property. New types of protections are needed to prevent the monopolization of decentralization. Colin has been working with patent attorneys to explore defensive strategies for open source specifications. Public disclosure provides sufficient protection for existing innovations however finalization of the open source patent specification will be the proverbial nail in the coffin.
• This will not involve a new system but instead utilizes a backdoor in the existing patent framework combined with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) functionality to deter proprietary behaviors and supply irrefutable evidence in support of eventual conflicts. This will allow an entity to retain ownership of the property while still remaining open source, protecting misuse from even the inventors.

Source: Forbes

• Think of Nexus as the future fuel powering internet economies, ecosystems and associated digital relationships. It’s a fundamental core component capturing economic change on the fringe of a massive shift. Nexus will create a thriving environment for driving cooperatives, altruistic endeavors and or any organization seeking industry-leading innovation with firm requirements for security and decentralization.
• Paul provided details on the Tritium ++ release schedule plan and items in the development pipeline. Significant time has been spent on mobile wallet bugs and the open beta release is right around the corner. The team has reaffirmed lite node as the official name for this package release. Android is much farther ahead but great progress is finally being made on Apple.
• Kendal was able to correct the Android issues that were not allowing regular http and processor threads. Sync is extremely fast, in a matter of seconds, but can vary slightly. They are still monitoring a few bugs and crashes however there are no roadblocks at the current time. Please reach out to Kendal if you have any questions.

• A few consensus critical changes need to be made to support the DEX and partial credits/tx still need to be designed. The DEX will be released as an API method set and module.
• Pooled staking is under code review and requires some cleanup before testing begins. Architecturally, the pooled function is not a major modification. The core staking system was much more intricate, however both of these will be released on the upcoming forks.
• Colin will be working on multithreading for the LLD and LLP to compound the exponential performance improvements. The LLP enhancements will curb net neutrality controls and provide greater throughput for other low bandwidth or throttled scenarios. Additionally, this will create a multithreaded sync that dynamically identifies ideal nodes based on bandwidth and constraining variables thereby improving individual node performance, network scalability and ecosystem longevity.
• The development team is constantly striving to maintain a high bar, taking many factors into consideration. Initiative, drive, opsec and similar characteristics are factored when evaluating new volunteer talent. Glenn Bogarts, Beuschl and Amanda are the recent additions to the team.
• The first quarter we will see the beginning of the Tritium ++ forks although the mobile wallet should come before that.

12/21/2020 — NP white paper was officially released and registered as an asset on blockchain!

“After four years of architectural development we are proud to release version 1.0.0 of the Nexus Protocol (NP) open specification including GSL Routing, WRL Blooms, and Orbital Filesystems ~ ad astra credo”

“The latest white paper is released as an open specification. It is timestamped & recorded on #NXS under asset name US:NP-WP. This document was released to public domain @ 11:20:05 AM GMT — 6, 12/21/2020 & can be viewed here: http://api.nexus.io:8080/assets/get/asset/US:NP-WP”

Roadmap and Roadblocks

The roadmap below is referenced from the Nexus website. No roadblocks are worth noting at this time.

Goals for Next Quarter

Pooled staking, API enhancements, DEX, LLD performance optimizations, and mobile/desktop wallet/lite mode continue to remain top priorities and all are nearing completion.