Apex Network has released a second article in its “Behind the Scenes” series with its chief technology officer, Richard Wang. The Apex blockchain infrastructure aims to provide consumer internet and business-to-customer (B2C) interactions with privacy and ownership of data, interactive consumer experiences, and a connectivity of value. The “Behind the Scenes” series is an attempt to keep the Apex and NEO communities up to date and knowledgeable about its technology under development.

Nodes

Richard begins the article with a simplified description of the Apex node ecosystem design, which is centered around super nodes, voter nodes, and data cloud nodes. Super nodes act as the block producers in the delegated proof of state (DPoS) consensus network. Voter nodes are comprised of an incentivized, four-tiered system that allows community members and small partners to stake into the system. Data cloud nodes provide an application-level value to the network, as they support the decentralized storage and management of consumer data.

With regards to the type of equipment necessary to operate data cloud nodes, Richard conveyed that Apex believes the network won’t require participants to operate the most powerful equipment. However, Richard did state “more powerful equipment is likely to be used more and thus may earn more fees.” The Apex Network CTO recommends data cloud node hosts to have medium system specs, despite the fact, there are no hard-set requirements. Apex is designing a performance and reputation system that incorporates factors such as latency, storage capacity, computation speed, and uptime.

Richard also addressed user questions surrounding voter node and data cloud node staking, he stated “the staking requirement is not exclusive, but inclusive.” Meaning users will also be able to both stake CPX for any level of a tiered voter node status, as well as host a data cloud node.

MainNet, Side Chains, and Consensus

In its original roadmap, Apex MainNet launch was planned to take place in Quarter 2 of 2019. However, due to the expansion and efficient production of the Apex development team, MainNet is now projected to launch in Quarter 1 of 2019. Following the launch of MainNet, Apex will focus on deploying sidechains in Quarter 2 of 2019.

Apex envisions its sidechains to operate on a proof of stake (PoS) mechanism, which according to Richard, will be “validated by a different set of decentralized nodes which Apex Network’s core development will provide the infrastructure for via the voter node ecosystem.” Enterprise partners will also be offered the opportunity to host their own side chain infrastructure in a “hybrid borderline private network.”

Apex is in the process of transferring 3 to 4 engineers to the blockchain development team, in an effort to provide adequate scalability testing while the technology is in production mode.

Decentralized Exchange

The Apex decentralized exchange (DEX) is planned for Quarter 3 or Quarter 4 of 2019. Though, Richard relayed the tentative timeframe is dependent on the “speed of both development and adoption, and deployment of sidechains.” Prior to a DEX protocol, the MainNet and virtual machine (VM) must operate consistently and reliably.

Enterprise Partners

Richard highlighted the notion that Apex Network seeks to provide its enterprise customers with “natural extension[s] of their existing solutions.” Apex sees it as their job and goal to provide protocol-level features that allow enterprise users to access backend systems, B2C applications, online/offline customer touchpoints, and to enhance the overall customer experience.

Apex Network provides a service layer – comprised of software developer’s kits (SDK) and application programming interfaces (API) – to address each of these solutions. Richard states, this “gives the enterprise user the freedom to integrate in a manner that fits the existing application the best.”

The next participant in the Apex Network “Behind the Scenes” series has yet to be determined, but Richard hinted the next guest posts could be made by Tiger Yang, president and COO, or Robert Xu, vice president of product. 

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