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What is Radix?

The best place to learn about Radix is the Radix Full Stack site or the RadFi 2022 Keynote.

Radix can refer to a few different things, depending on context:

- Radix as software: Radix can refer to the Radix Node software or wallets such as the Radix Wallet.

- Radix as a protocol: Radix can refer to the Radix Protocol, which is the set of rules that governs validator nodes running Radix Node software. The Radix Protocol is formed of the Radix Engine as its application layer and Cerberus as its consensus layer. 

- Radix as a user experience: The Radix Wallet provides a far more intuitive and secure user experience with innovations such as the Transaction Manifest, Personas, Smart Accounts, and Radix Connect, allowing your friends and family to now confidently use Web3 and DeFi. See radixdlt.com/wallet or the Full Stack site for more.

- Radix as a developer experience: The Scrypto programming language and Radix Engine execution environment offers a far more easy, intuitive and secure way to build powerful Web3 and DeFi dApps. Anyone can now easily learn to build Web3 and DeFi applications quickly and confidently. See developers.radixdlt.com or the Full Stack site for more.

- Radix as a network: The Radix Protocol running on validator nodes forms the basis of the Radix Public Network – a fully decentralized platform for DeFi dApps and users. 

- Radix as a ledger: The decentralized Radix Public Network maintains the public, immutable and permissionless Radix Ledger.

- Radix as a project: Radix can refer to the decentralized project being undertaken by the Radix Community, Radix Foundation, Radix Publishing, Radix Tokens (Jersey) supported by contributors such as developer RDX Works and other community developers

- Radix as an ecosystem: All of the above, including a decentralized community of users, developers, node-runners, and XRD token holders; dApps, partners, and ancillary services, forms the totality of the Radix ecosystem. To learn more about the Radix Ecosystem, check out some third party sites such as:

- www.radixlist.com

- www.radixecosystem.com

- www.radixcharts.com

- www.getradix.com

- www.radixscan.com

See How do I discover dApps and tokens in the Radix ecosystem for more.

Why build all this?

Decentralized finance applications are currently built on layer 1 protocols that are not fit for purpose. This leads to congestion, hacks, and user and developer frustration. Radix changes this by introducing a scalable, secure-by-design, and composable platform with a DeFi-centric execution environment to make it easy to build and launch scalable DeFi products and services; and a user experience that finally allows your friends and family to confidently use Web3 and DeFi

Radix has delivered on this vision across a sequence of public network releases that started with core decentralization (Olympia mainnet), then moved on to developer features necessary to create an active community of builders and applications (Alexandria). Those developer features and the enhanced user experience offered by the Radix Wallet are currently live on Radix’s Babylon mainnet. Finally, to provide the unlimited scalability those applications will need to support Web3 and DeFi at global scale, the Radix Xi’an mainnet upgrade will deliver a sharded form of Radix’s peer-reviewed Cerberus consensus protocol that will provide unlimited linear scalability without compromising atomic composability. See here for more: What is the Radix roadmap?

For more details on the purpose of Radix, see: What is the purpose of Radix?

Further reading: