The founder of Nexus, Colin Cantrell, is the son of one of the founding members of aerospace company SpaceX, Jim Cantrell. Jim is now the co-founder of Vector Space Systems, a company preparing to launch affordable satellites, approximately twice the size of a Rubik’s Cube, called CubeSats, into space.
FORMER SPACEX FOUNDING MEMBER IS STARTING A NEW SMALL ROCKETS COMPANY
When I first heard Colin speak about Nexus, it all sounded like English, but there were lots of words and acronyms I could not find in my dictionary. I guess I can forgive him after learning his father is truly a rocket scientist. Imagine the conversation around the dinner table in that household. Here, after many hours of research, I am going to attempt to decipher Nexus for you, and explain it in terms we can all understand.
A few months ago I was researching ways to circumvent the current banking system where every dollar, euro, and ruble is regulated, tracked, taxed and reported. Nexus first caught my attention when I read the following quote from Colin: “You can’t ask people to boycott a system without offering something for them to use instead.”
Providing an alternative to today’s limited financial choices is what the Nexus project promises. Nexus plans to give worldwide access to a monetary store of value which cannot be controlled or compromised by those who feel they should have authority over your money. In addition, Nexus will offer financial security to the billions of people around the world with access to cell phones, but no way to store or spend their money.
That sounds complicated. How will Nexus accomplish this? In simple terms, their plan requires just two necessary components. First, there must be a completely secure unit of value, both today and in the foreseeable future, which can handle an almost unlimited number of transactions. Second, the source of this unit of value must exist where there is no regulation. Where Bitcoin, and every other crypto currency, fail to meet either of these requirements, Nexus addresses both. This project is revolutionary in scope, yet takes advantage of technology already available today to create the necessary pieces.
The first question I asked myself was where this radical idea came from. There have to be other people working on something similar, right? The answer is no. When Satoshi created Bitcoin, he put parameters in place defining how security worked, how transactions are handled, and how many Bitcoins miners would earn. All other crypto currencies work within the general confines Satoshi originally defined with minor differences.
Colin Cantrell, instead of confining Nexus to these boundaries and jumping right into project development in 2014, spent months learning to think the way Satoshi thought. He asked himself, “If Satoshi were improving the original Bitcoin parameters to create an even more decentralized and secure currency, what would he change?” Discovering the answers to this question helped shape the detailed plan Colin created. The steps in his plan to improve the Bitcoin protocol, along with the progress already made, are summarized in the outline below.
I am going to make the assumption you already know what the Blockchain is. This is not the article to define it for you. You will often see the Blockchain defined as a ‘peer to peer decentralized distributing network’. Since this is a guide for the average Joe, and I recently learned this myself, I just wanted to point out these two are the same. I will use the term Blockchain below, since saying peer to peer decentralized distributing network is like calling a car a ‘mobile self-propelled transporting relocation device.’
The Nexus Blockchain works the same way others work. Miners are using processors to create and place each new block at the end of the current chain. Blocks on the Nexus chain are placed in under 150 seconds, making transactions considerably faster than Bitcoin.
Another way Nexus increases the speed of transactions is by having a multi-threaded balanced messaging protocol, where Bitcoin is single-threaded.
What? You said this was for the average Joe. C’mon man!
Sorry, let me explain in terms even I can understand. Imagine your company is in charge of loading boxes onto a train with one hundred empty cars, and you have one forklift. You have to pick up a box, move it to the first car, load it, then go get the box for the second car, load it, etc. This is an illustration of how data flowing through the single-threaded Bitcoin system works. Now imagine you have one hundred forklifts, and at the same time they all retrieved their box and each loads one of the cars, so all one hundred were loaded in the same time it took to load one car in the first example. This is how data flowing through the multi-threaded Nexus system works. Many transactions are processed at the same time.
Nexus is going to address one of the most frustrating aspects of crypto currency transfers. If you have attempted to send Bitcoin to an invalid address, or have accidentally sent it to the wrong address, you know there is no way to get it back. Nexus is going have the ability to require a sender and receiver signature. This means if you send your Nexus to an invalid address, it will not receive a signature, and will be sent back to you. It also means if you realize you sent Nexus to an incorrect address, you will have a definable period of time to cancel the transfer. Lastly, if you are on the receiving side and want to refuse a transfer, you will be able to return it.
These are all easy ways Nexus is going to improve on the current Bitcoin parameters. Now I am to the point where I have to attempt to define something difficult… Security.
If you read the information on the Nexus Bitcointalk thread or the NexusEarth Webpage, you are sure to see the following definition for Nexus security…
Hashing: SK-1024, SK-576, SK-512, and SK-256 used in all hashing. Pure SHA3 using Skein and Keccak.
Let me first explain why all of those indecipherable letters and numbers are necessary. The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, wrote an article in 2013 detailing the effect quantum computers are going to have on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Is Not Quantum-Safe, And How We Can Fix It When Needed
In the article, Buterin explains how quantum computers are going to make it possible to break Bitcoin security. The technology in quantum computers is so fast and powerful, the incredible hash security designed in 2002 currently utilized by Bitcoin will soon no longer protect transactions from being intercepted, and potentially altered, before the latest block in the Bitcoin chain is agreed upon.
Knowing more security is required for the future, let me break down the Nexus security definition. Hashing simply means the security used when encrypting data. Bitcoin is using SHA2 hashing (security). SHA is an acronym meaning Secure Hash Algorithm. While it is not believed anyone has broken SHA2 hashing yet, the emergence of quantum computers mean it is only a matter of time before it happens.
In 2008, NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, started a competition to create another secure alternative hashing standard they would label SHA3. In this competition 51 candidates submitted admissions. Four years later, the submission called Keccak was selected as the winner of the competition. It beat out another highly secure hashing submission called Skein. If you look up again at the Nexus Hashing definition, you will see SHA3 using Skein and Keccak… and now you know where those names came from.
Nexus incorporates both of these protocols together into its security, and is the first coin to incorporate the new SHA3 standard. Where you see SK-1024 in the definition, this is referring to the combined Skein/Keccak (SK) hash security to produce a 1024 bit output when creating the block. How can I make that easier to understand? It is really (really) super secure. Nexus uses the SK security standard to produce hashing for each component of its transactions. You may not understand what each of these components are, but here is a list of the different hashing used in the Nexus network.
SK-256: Hash to generate an Address from your Public Key Hash.
SK-512: Hash for Transaction.
SK-576: Hash of Public Keys, which is then hashed with SK256 to generate your Address.
SK-1024: Hash for Block Generation. Used by both the CPU and GPU miners [and Stake Minting] to create new Blocks.
In comparison to SK-1024 security standard used by Nexus to create its blocks, Bitcoin is using SHA2, 256 bit output. This makes Nexus four times as secure. Nexus also uses 571 bit private keys, compared to 256 bit keys used in almost all other currencies. This 571 bit private key is the government recommended standard proposed by NIST and used by the NSA.
You may have heard something about a 51% attack, which is the possibility one entity or group has enough power to make the latest block on the chain be from whatever chain they decide is correct. While this has never happened to Bitcoin yet, in 2014 a mining pool called Ghash.io did get up to 50%. This dominance is possible because everyone on the Bitcoin network is casting their vote in the same channel, so if 51% of the votes on the single channel say yes to a particular block, that block is considered ‘agreed upon’ and added to the chain.
With Nexus, there are three channels in the network, GPU mining, CPU mining, and Nexus Proof of Stake (nPoS). In order to succeed with a 51% attack on the Nexus network, the attacker would have to control 51% of the votes across all three of the channels. This, along with the SHA3 Skein/Keccak security defined above, ensure it is not currently possible now, or in the foreseeable future, to compromise the security of the Nexus network. No other coin, even the ones claiming they are the most secure, approaches the level of security built into Nexus.
There are other differences as well you can read about on the NexusEarth Webpage or on the Nexus Bitcointalk Thread. These other points are easier to understand, such as the increasing interest up to 3% you earn on your Nexus wallet balance, based on how much trust you build staking on the network.
This brings us to the end of the first important feature needed to implement the Nexus project; a completely secure unit of value, both today and in the foreseeable future, which can handle an almost unlimited number of transactions. To refresh your memory, the second necessary feature is this unit of value must exist where there is no regulation. This is the part that gets me really excited about the project.
Look back up and reread the first paragraph of this article again. Do you see any clues there to where an unregulated home for Nexus might be found by Colin Cantrell?
If Nexus resides on Earth, it will be subject to the regulations of the governments where it derives from. Have you ever seen a casino boat? They take their passengers out into the ocean or river channel before anyone is allowed to start gambling, because the laws prohibiting gambling don’t apply away from shore. The Nexus network will be one hundred miles away, straight over our heads. Regulate that!
As defined on the Bitcointalk page…
"Nexus is actively building relationships within the aerospace industry to allow for the hardware infrastructure to be compatible with its transaction system. Nexus is building the foundation to broadcast the Blockchain and Nexus Network from space. Under existing hardware infrastructure, cryptocurrency is technically under the mercy of telecommunication and government technology industries. Coupled with both the development of software and hardware, Nexus seeks to free men from centralized financial institutions."
Now you know. Nexus is the most secure crypto currency, led by a brilliant renegade visionary, employing a passionate team of highly skilled people, with the ability to put their ideas into space, all using existing technology. I can currently buy NXS currency for less than .05 cents. How long do you think that is going to last?
Join the Nexus Slack Channel - Get access to the developers, and check out the active trading channel for daily discussion on great picks.
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The Article Below Was Posted on September 23, 2016
Quantum Computing Will Cripple Encryption Methods Within Decade, Spy Agency Chief Warns
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