BUIP195: Nexa Ultrascale Testnet Initiative
Submitted by Singularity
20 April 2023
Motivation
Nexa’s most significant unique selling point is the scaling strategy with the goal to achieve over 100,000 transactions per second of capacity. There are a number of active projects focused on the hardware and software required to achieve this including: the FPGA signature validation engine, the CashDrive UTXO-lookup accelerator, UTXO Commitments.
The motivation of this BUIP and resulting project is to start the process of building a testnet similar to that of the ‘’Gigablock Initiative’ also carried out by Bitcoin Unlimited a number of years ago. This testnet will simulate the NEXA network at up to 100,000TPS using a realistic, real-world network with nodes distributed around the world.
Objectives
This project would aim to achieve two high-value objectives.
- It will provide an invaluable technology pathway to take NEXA from its current network architecture to a more final form in terms of capacity and throughput using new hardware and software.
- It will also act as a signal to investors, developers and businesses that Nexa really can achieve planet-scale capacity today. This will provide enormous marketing value and will put NEXA on the map as the most innovative and promising cryptocurrency project.
Plan
- Establish a testnet network of at least 5 mid-tier nodes spread across the globe. The nodes should have a specification similar to that of a mid-level desktop PC.
- Research software bottlenecks in the current node software, such as signature verification, and UTXO-lookups.
- Remove any bottlenecks in the code naively by simply removing functions to test the throughput that can be achieved if these functions were performed at much higher speed.
- Integrate the signature verification FPGA hardware into the full-nodes on the testnet network and re-enable signature verifications.
- Integrate the CashDrive hardware into the full-nodes on the testnet network and re-enable UTXO-lookups.
- Ramp up the continuous throughput on the network until it maxes out due to network instability, with a goal of achieving at least 100,000 TPS of normal 1 input, 2 output payment-type transactions.
Funding
Budget of a maximum of $60,000 which will be put towards:
- The cost of purchasing/renting and operating the nodes needed to run the UltraScale testnet.
- Developer time to implement code changes to achieve all phases of the plan.
The elected BU officials: President, Secretary and Developer will jointly agree to this expenditure to make sure the exchange agreed upon is of a sufficient quality.
