Piers Ridyard is the CEO of Radix, a layer-one protocol built for DeFi. DeFi applications are currently built on protocols that were not designed to scale. Radix has built a scalable, secure, high-throughput protocol for building applications and tokens. Building on the successes of existing public ledgers, Radix’s protocol is a permissionless framework on which DeFi services can be developed and run. Radix claims to have solved two of the biggest challenges in DeFi - scalability, and security. 

Why you should listen:

Radix has raised $6 million in funding, including $4.1 million in 2020 from the founder of TransferWise, Taavet Hinrikus. 

The value of DeFi is over $8 billion. However, for DeFi to reach its full potential, it needs fast, low-cast transactions and secure by design systems. It’s critical that DeFi applications are scalable and composable. Piers says that protocols such as Ethereum 2,0, Polkadot and Cosmos are solving the wrong scaling problems, and not addressing others. Piers says that mainstream DeFi needs a DLT platform designed bottom-to-top to make DeFi just work – for users, and for developers. This is the aim of Radix. 

For the DeFi ecosystem to continue to grow incentives are needed to attract developers. Radix has an innovative developer incentive program that allows developers to profit from the applications they contribute to.

Key takeaway:

Radix features two core innovations, firstly Cerberus, the scalable consensus protocol. Cerberus is capable of processing massive numbers of transactions in parallel due to its highly sharded data structure and unique application layer. 

The second innovation is the Radix Engine, a developer interface that allows quick public ledger deployments in a secure environment. The Radix Engine is Radix’s application layer. 

In the Crypto Conversation hot take round Piers says that he expects DeFi to have more liquidity than any other single exchange in the transitional market within the next ten years. “The fundamental component of DeFi is the way that liquidity can move between applications and products.”

Asked about his favorite piece of sci-fi, Piers picks Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.

Supporting links:

Radix

Radix on Twitter

Piers on Twitter

Andy on Twitter 

Brave New Coin on Twitter

Brave New Coin

Rendezvous with Rama

If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.