Thread by @ToinfinityandU1

CRYPTO MEGATHREAD - #CASSANDRA
#Radix $eXRD Research project
Still unknown to many, Cassandra is one of the most significant ongoing research projects in the crypto-space today. The findings from Cassandra will have a huge impact on the future of digital currencies and DeFi.

R&D IN CRYPTO
R&D has always been a significant part of the development of Radix. Other large projects in the crypto-space such as #cardano and #Dfinity have also realised the importance of R&D and have been rightfully praised for taking a scientific approach to development.

Building prototypes and testing them is a major part of a proper R&D cycle. The benefits of building a prototype can be seen in the case of #polkadot's #kusama network.

WHAT IS CASSANDRA?
Cassandra is a prototype network implementing the Cerberus consensus protocol.
Cassandra will demonstrate, and test cutting edge technology which will be coming to the Radix Mainnet in the future, while providing a research platform to test future ideas.

WHAT CASSANDRA CAN DO (SUMMARY)
-Prove the capabilities of the Cerberus consensus protocol
-Provide evidence to support the Radix whitepaper
-Test edge case situations and push the protocol to its absolute limits
-Provide a testbed to experiment with new ideas for the future

PROVING CERBERUS
Scaling is a well-known problem in the cryptosphere, the issue of high fees and slow transactions is well known to the majority of blockchain users. This problem and the associated trademarks are informally described by the 'scalability trilemma'

SHARDING
One solution to this problem is sharding. Sharding splits a blockchain or DLT into smaller portions. Each shard only has to verify some of the transactions on the ledger, making it easier for to process more transactions, more quickly and at a lower cost.

ATOMIC COMPOSABILITY
Although sharding can reduce fees and increase speed, up until recently it introduced some new problems. Sharding a ledger separates apps from each other making it more difficult for them to work smoothly together.

Transactions that could previously be performed in one simple step now require slower complex multistep processes to carry out. This can lead to a loss of performance or even make it impossible for some apps to work.

DLT's and blockchains must support an ecosystem of connected apps. Cross-shard transactions must still be a fast and efficient process. The ledger must be able to commit the transactions instantly across all the involved shards without delay. This property is atomic composability

HOW DOES THIS LINK TO CERBERUS?
Cerberus is the consensus protocol pioneered by Radix. It is the first and only consensus protocol that is scalable, secure, decentralised AND supports atomic composability across shards.

PROOF OF CERBERUS
Cerberus has theoretical support in the form of a whitepaper and a mathematical paper published by Expolabs and UC Davis.
Cassandra is a working prototype demonstrating the capabilities of the Cerberus protocol and providing hard evidence that it works.

CURRENT PROGRESS
Some of the achievements so far:
- Demonstrated atomic cross-shard composability ✅
- Demonstrated linear scalability✅
- Scaled to 10,000 +TPS✅
- Hybridized deterministic with probabilistic consensus✅
- Validator sets of 1000+ per shard group supported✅

THE FUTURE
Cassandra will develop side by side with the Radix Mainnet. Useful findings from Cassandra will make their way into Radix. The testing and work done on Cassandra will ensure optimal performance when new features are introduced to Radix.

twitch.tv/videos/9687257…