Thread by @thorchain_org

If ASGARDEX was built 10 years ago, then it would have prevented 10 years of hacks, insolvency and scams.

But the tech is only just ready:

* Distributed state machine (@cosmos)
* Leaderless TSS (@sgoldfed)
* AMM protocols (@UniswapProtocol)

/thread

State Machine work stated with @jaekwon in 2014 with @tendermint_team, original driving motivator in fact to build a decentralised exchange.

Cosmos hub launched in 2018, @Binance_DEX in 2019.

The tech is mostly complete, some necessary upgrades include better upgrading, IBC

TSS paper (GG18) unveiled in 2018 by Gennaro & Goldfeder. Significant because it was the first scalable ECDSA TSS with no trusted dealer.

@ZenGo implemented in Rust, Binance implemented in Go in 2019.

A faster, more scalable version this year. (GG20)

eprint.iacr.org/2019/114.pdf

AMM protocols first discussed by Vitalik on reddit in 2016 (reddit.com/r/ethereum/com…), with attention from @Bancor in 2017, implemented by Uniswap in late 2018, coming into maturity in 2020

The THORChain team are busy trying to build all three together:

* A state machine to manage TSS vault membership
* AMM protocol to simplify and incentivise liquidity

In addition, research and understanding of how to do PoS properly is growing.

THORChain combines PoS security with pooled liquidity such that it is scalable:

* Only staked capital is protected
* An Incentive Pendulum ensures the system is never inefficient or insecure
* Pools eschew the need for external price fees

The team are trying to launch the network:

* without compromising the ability of the network to decentralise
* feature complete which will prevent centralised upgrades later
* as secure as possible

Testnets are progressing well, the next stage is single-chain Chaosnet, which will run for as long as needed to build out multi-chain chaosnet.

Multi-chain chaosnet will be the transition to mainnet.

The tech stack discussed above *will* become the blueprint of all exchanges going forward. THORChain's source code will be forked and deployed many times over.

As it stands, the current THORChain team are best positioned to deploy ASGARDEX such that it will become the leader

They have 30 months of runway, intimately understand the stack, and have the clearest path to mainnet.

It will be a lot of work, but a decentralised, censorship-resistant, incentivised cross-chain exchange is the holy grail of this space, and everyone knows it.

$RUNE