Nexus’s Amanda Marquis: Solving the Blockchain Trilemma

Blockchain has been hounded by the Decentralization Trilemma. This is the idea that a blockchain can only have two of the three qualities: security, scalability, and decentralization. Nexus is creating a blockchain with all three.

BeInCrypto had the pleasure to talk to Amanda Marquis, the web developer at Nexus.

She has been a fan of Nexus for a few years and reached out to the ambassador team to see if they were looking for any new members. She was helping with the community Twitter account, but soon starting working on use-case dApps, the Nexus website. She is now learning the API. She was offered a developer contract at the start of 2021.

The beginnings of the still developing project date back to 2014. The native NXS token is trading at around $1.50, at the time of writing, but has increased almost 800% since the start of the year.

Marquis answered many of our questions about Nexus essentials, the problems it is trying to solve, the roadmap, innovative technology, interface development, the community, and even the NFT. Let’s dive in!

Solving the blockchain trilemma

BeInCrypto: What is Nexus? When was the genesis?

Amanda Marquis: Nexus is a community-driven project with the mission of connecting a decentralized world. We are working on technology that is designed to simplify lives, empower communities, and streamline business while embodying the founding principles of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin (BTC).

Our first NXS block was mined on Sept. 23, 2014, without an ICO or pre-mine. The original Nexus code began as a bitcoin/peercoin fork, however, the entire codebase was rewritten and released with the Tritium Protocol on Nov 5 2019.

Nexus has now evolved into a revolutionary, register-based contract engine. The Tritium Protocol release was the first of three major upgrades for our TAO (Tritium, Amine, Obsidian) Framework.

BeInCrypto: Nexus is working on a 3-Dimensional Chain (3DC). What is it?

Amanda Marquis: The 3DC is designed to solve the Blockchain Trilemma — security, scalability, and decentralization. The Trilemma is the idea that a blockchain can only have two of the three listed qualities. And we do not think that should be the case!

Story continues

The Nexus 3DC will transform the ledger into a multi-layered processing system, in order to scale securely and with a high degree of decentralization. The 3DC chains together cryptographic primitives into a three-dimensional immutable object (a 3D block), and has three core dimensions: reputation channels (X), immutability or authenticity (Y), and time (Z).

The emergence of new technology

BeinCrypto: What is the Nexus Protocol (NP)?

Amanda Marquis: The Nexus Protocol is our vision of a new internet, driven by a blockchain-based operating system (Nexus’ LX-OS) and routing protocol (Nexus Protocol), connected by a distributed satellite-based mesh network. This protocol would take the internet a step further by decentralizing and democratizing the network infrastructure through decentralized hardware and software.

BeInCrypto: What is the LX-OS?

Amanda Marquis: Nexus’ LX-OS is a blockchain-based operating system that is designed to resist attacks and improve user security and ease of use. The first phase will focus on embedded systems (IoT and cube satellites), with the consumer release providing decentralized cloud services, along with an intuitive user experience.

The LX-OS aims to resolve many of the vulnerability issues of today’s operating systems that allows hackers to piggyback malware onto PCs using elevated privileges, by authenticating all changes to the virtual user space across the entire runtime environment.

BeInCrypto: When will the LX-OS and the NP be available, and the satellites for the mesh network launched?

Amanda Marquis: These are long-term goals for Nexus, so we do not have an estimated time of completion and launch for them at this time! Code in production now (LLL-TAO) will be used for the LX-OS and the NP, so work is already in progress for both elements.

They will also be tirelessly tested and evaluated to ensure the best product is released, as this is revolutionary technology in the making! We will be adding these features to our roadmap on the Nexus website in the coming months.

Mobile wallet and P2P market

BeInCrypto: What are some short-term goals of Nexus?

Amanda Marquis: We currently have our mobile wallet in open Beta for iOS and Android. The team has been ironing out the back-end code and the full release is on the horizon.

Some key features that will be released in an upcoming release of Tritium ++ include updates to our desktop wallet, release of pooled staking, and various API enhancements including new code for our upcoming P2P Marketplace and DAO.

BeInCrypto: What are some of the features of the mobile wallet?

Amanda Marquis: The Nexus mobile wallet is a lite node built with a focus on reliability and security, using the same modular framework behind the desktop wallet. The mobile wallet eliminates reliance on centralized servers and provides unprecedented access to the Nexus network.

As a lite node, it will not download the entire blockchain history to the device, only storing and processing block headers and the user’s signature chain, starting with the hash of the very first Tritium block hard-coded into the wallet. It holds the same security and privacy as a full node wallet, with a minimal storage, memory, and processor footprint.

BeInCrypto: What is the progress of the P2P Marketplace, and will it be an AMM?

Amanda Marquis: Progress on it is going well! Our P2P marketplace is being built on an entirely new P2P marketplace API. Once completed, anyone will have the ability to use that code to build their own web interface for it.

It will not be an AMM. It will operate on the traditional exchange approach of buyers and sellers posting their market or limit orders and could be partially or fully filled by anyone. It will also rely on consensus rules and contract logic, meaning the seller can retract their order at any point until it has been fulfilled.

Protocols and NXS supply

BIC: What is Nexus doing with Quantum Resistance technology?

Amanda Marquis: Our previously mentioned Signature Chains enhance the security of existing DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm), by hashing the public key until it is used while changing the key pair with every transaction.

We have also integrated the following cryptographic functions: FALCON (a second-round contender for the NIST Post-Quantum cryptography competition), Argon2 (winner of the password hashing competition, and a superior alternative to S-Crypt or B-Crypt), and Keccak (winner of the SHA3 competition).

BeInCrypto: Nexus is both proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS). Why?

Amanda Marquis: To keep our project decentralized. Both PoW and PoS have their advantages, and we wanted to make sure that none of our three channels (Two PoW, Hash and Prime, and one PoS) got too centralized. With consensus balanced between all three channels, it makes the network more resistant to 51% attacks.

BeInCrypto: Does Nexus have a maximum supply?

Amanda Marquis: It does not! The initial distribution will create a supply of 78 million NXS, which will end on Sept. 23, 2024. After, it will follow an inflation rate based on the annual inflation rate of gold.

Each PoW channel will increase the NXS supply by 1% per year, and the PoS channel will allow for a maximum of 3% increase, but that would only happen if all NXS in circulation were being staked. It is expected to fall more closely in line with the PoW channels, around 1%.

Nexus community, adoption, and NFTs

BeInCrypto: How can people get involved?

Amanda Marquis: There are many ways to get involved with Nexus! We have multiple social media channels, as well as Discord, Telegram, and Slack servers. Sharing Nexus information across a variety of platforms helps spread the word. If someone wants to get involved in a more specific way, we have dedicated workgroups available on Telegram and Slack that focus on different tasks (content, social media, outreach, etc.).

We encourage anyone who is interested in helping in any way to join these workgroups, and we will work together to continue the Nexus vision!

BeInCrypto: How is mass adoption progressing for Nexus?

Amanda Marquis: In recent months, the community has stepped up around the world to increase the adoption of Nexus and usage of NXS for payment. With the mobile wallet in open beta, users are now able to access their Signature Chains on the go, and able to send or receive NXS instantaneously!

It has been awesome to see restaurants and shops starting to accept NXS (most recently in Thailand), and we hope to see many more places in the future do the same!

BeInCrypto: Can you build NFTs on Nexus?

Amanda Marquis: Yes you can! Right now, users are able to create them directly inside our desktop wallet, or by directly interacting with our API through other coded websites or platforms like Bubble.

However, due to our unique TAO framework, we are not supported on NFT Marketplaces at the moment. Once our P2P marketplace is available, there will be a location to buy and sell NFTs!

BeInCrypto: Thank you for the interview and good luck with further work on this interesting project.

Amanda Marquis: Thank you too! Greetings to BeInCrypto readers!