Nexa: L1 Blockchain from Bitcoin Unlimited Developers
Nexa is a Layer-1 blockchain that utilizes the Proof of Work consensus mechanism and aims to become the most scalable base chain. This decentralized ledger is designed to process more than 10 billion transactions per day or 100,000 transactions per second.
Nexa is built on the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model, which tracks the amount of cryptocurrency circulating in the network. This monitoring mechanism is also a distinctive feature of the Bitcoin blockchain and its forks.
Establishing a digital infrastructure for a novel financial system that is accessible to everyone is the ultimate objective of Nexa's founders. They are ardent supporters of the initial Bitcoin concept and aim to realize it through their project.
NEXA is the native cryptocurrency of the blockchain. Since February 2023, NEXA has been traded on various centralized exchanges, including MEXC Global, Txbit, SafeTrade, and several others. As of the time of writing, its market cap amounts to $62.7 million, and there are currently 2.2 trillion NEXA coins in circulation. The maximum supply of NEXA is set at 21 trillion.
Nexa is engineered to be compatible with both central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), which enables users to mine NEXA at home using video cards. However, as the blockchain expands, the project's creators expect it to spur the mining industry and incentivize the production of specialized equipment such as FPGA and ASIC.
Who founded Nexa?
In June 2022, Bitcoin Unlimited, a company that specializes in designing and developing blockchain software, launched the Nexa project.
Bitcoin Unlimited provides a full eponymous node, which is capable of launching the Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash chains. It offers users the ability to configure their nodes and select their preferred block size. The software was developed in opposition to the classic Bitcoin Core client program. The latter refused to increase the block size beyond 1 megabyte as per the technical documentation's requirement that transactions must not exceed such size.
The key figures behind the project:
- Andrew Stone — Lead Developer and the first to propose the concept of an upgraded node for connecting to the Bitcoin blockchain;
- Andrew Clifford — President of the company;
- Peter Rizun — Director of Research and one of the earliest supporters of the idea to increase block size. He also explained why it was possible in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
What's the secret to Nexa's scaling success?
Nexa boasts low transaction fees as one of its primary attributes, which is accomplished through the implementation of technologies that eradicate "bottlenecks" in the blockchain's throughput, storage capacity, and transaction verification speed.
Nexa's high throughput is achieved through an initial blockchain synchronization process, wherein miners add a hash to each block that verifies the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) set. This eliminates the need for new users who launch a node to download the entire chain of blocks. Assisted by the Graphene tool, nodes are able to process only new transactions, thereby minimizing traffic expenses and accelerating the continuous loading of fresh transactions and blocks.
Hardware acceleration fortifies a trio of functions that enable Nexa to rapidly execute transactions:
- SHA256 hashing, which is typical of the Nexa protocol, transactions, and the PoW algorithm.
- Schnorr cryptographic signatures.
- UTXO data retrieval, which is utilized to verify and confirm transactions.
By utilizing the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) method, the storage problem is also resolved. This approach allows nodes to store only the dataset of unspent transaction outputs.
It is noteworthy that a plethora of features are presently under development and their anticipated release is scheduled for the years 2023-2024.
