The advantage of Decred cryptocurrency
To know the benefits of Decred, it must be compared with BTC. The main advantages of Decred are decentralization, because every day the Bitcoin cryptocurrency is becoming more and more centralized.
The second advantage is Decred mining, which is available using regular video cards. Thanks to decred mining, the cryptocurrency has greater decentralization as miners are distributed throughout the world.
The third advantage of Decred is the use of a hybrid PoW+PoS consensus model.
Description of the Decred cryptocurrency
It’s worth starting with a general description of the Decred cryptocurrency. This project was launched in February 2020. At the same time, many analysts immediately stated that this system is very similar to Bitcoin. But it would be wrong to call her an ordinary clone. Decred has a number of important differences from the number one cryptocurrency.
Decred was created as an alternative to Bitcoin.
One of the main differences is the hybrid mining system. The described platform uses a combination of Proof of Work and Proof of Stake algorithms. It allows both ordinary users and miners to influence the system equally. This approach prevents a single group of participants from gaining control of the platform.
The main goal of creating Decred is to become an alternative to fiat money as a means of exchange. It is known that Bitcoin was created for the same purpose. But so far it has not been able to become a full-fledged replacement for classical currencies. And the authors of the described platform intend to solve this problem.
Plans for further development
Significant plans include the Lightning Network protocol, which will solve the problem of scalability and enhance privacy. The creators are working on smart contracts; in the future, operations with virtual currency without reference to the blockchain are planned.
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In the new roadmap, the creators announced the implementation of DAO. Changes in hard forks will be voted on by shareholders. A 75% vote is required to approve updates.
It is planned to change the request for proposals function. The administration process today is complex - to simplify the work, employees and contractors will be hired for long-term work.
Another update is a public system that allows users to make suggestions for the further development of the project. Work is also underway to introduce transaction support.
Cryptocurrency Decred (DCR)
Decred cryptocurrency (DCR) is an altcoin created as a means of payment, rather than a token - a share. The Decred project, launched in December 2020, was created by part of the Bitcoin development team, combining the best characteristics of Bitcoin and correcting the most important errors of “digital gold”, such as block scalability and others.
The peculiarity and difference of the Decred project is its focus on the community’s contribution to its development, open management and stable funding. In other words, holders of enough DCR coins can vote on further features of the project, just like shareholders of the project.
Decred uses a hybrid proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) system, which ensures that a small organized group cannot dominate the transaction flow or make changes to the Decred project without the participation of the entire community.
Advantages of the Decred project
In order to name the advantages of any cryptocurrency or cryptographic project, it is necessary to indicate which particular project or currency we are making a comparison with. In this article, we will compare Decred with Bitcoin.
The main advantages of Decred over Bitcoin is decentralization. Yes, you didn’t think so, it’s decentralization, because every day the Bitcoin cryptocurrency is less decentralized, and is subject to increasing control by a certain team of miners.
The second advantage is the availability of mining. We won’t talk about mining in great detail, but will touch on this topic briefly. Mining of the Decred cryptocurrency is available using regular video cards, which makes it more accessible than Bitcoin mining, which is only relevant with the help of special equipment.
Using the Proof of Stake method gives the Decred network a third advantage. Using the PoS algorithm, all innovations proposed by the developers to improve the network must be accepted by the Decred community. This allows you to make only those improvements that users and DCR holders really need.
Decred Community Vote
There is a two-step voting process for adopting consensus changes - forks.
The first phase corresponds to the network update threshold. Most PoS/PoW nodes in the network must be updated before voting can begin. This is measured in the following ways:
- For PoW, at least 95% of the last 1000 blocks must be the latest version.
- For PoS, 75% of votes cast during the static interval must be the latest version.
The second stage is the voting itself. Voting occurs over a static interval of 8064 blocks. If 75% of the votes mined during this interval signal "yes", the changes are carried out. The implementation occurs after one additional interval to ensure that all remaining nodes upgrade to the hard fork.
Mining DCR
Mining of the DCR cryptocurrency, as mentioned above, is carried out by two algorithms: Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake.
In the first case, PoW miners provide their computing power to verify transactions and receive a certain reward for this. To increase their efficiency, small PoW miners can join mining pools.
The second mining method does not require a lot of computing power, but PoS miners need to buy voting tickets. To confirm the previous block, the system randomly selects a block of 5 tickets, as a result, the owners of these tickets receive a reward. To participate in PoS mining, tickets must be available 24/7. To ensure the constant availability of their tickets, PoS miners can also use pools.
Decred Project Roadmap
The long-term roadmap for the project was hidden from the public for a long time. It, along with the expected functions of the project, was released in January 2020.
- Voting - Stakeholders will be able to vote on all global changes to Decred, only those with more than 75% support will be activated.
- Public Proposal System - Following the hard fork, an off-chain system will be created in which Decred users can submit proposals for future work to the development organization, Decred Holdings Group (“dev org” or “DHG”).
- Decentralized control of DHG funds. Currently, control of DHG funds is centralized, and this will be corrected by creating a system where the management of these funds is decentralized, based on stakeholder votes.
- Supports the Lightning Network as the most convenient application for smart contracts today, as it allows transactions without being tied to the blockchain. This infrastructure has clear advantages for both scaling and privacy.
- Improved wallets (with interface) - Paymetheus (Windows) and decrediton (Windows, OS X and Linux).
- Changing the Request for Proposal process - currently difficult to administer. Decred will change the request for proposal to one where individuals and businesses will be hired to work on the project with a long-term perspective. As part of the changes, RFPs will seek contractors to handle marketing, advertising, documentation and community management work.
- Attendance at events - voting with the hard fork is almost ready, so developers have interesting content to discuss at events.
- Enhanced Privacy - Beginning in early Q3 2020, a new initiative will be introduced to improve user privacy.
- Support for payment integration, swaps. Decred has already added support for Atomic Swap for trading cryptocurrencies outside of exchanges (in testing). The technology allows you to exchange coins between blockchains without resorting to the services of exchangers.
Support for on-chain atomic swaps is extremely useful. Thanks to the foresight of the authors and developers of the Lightning Network and the diligence of our own developers, we are pleased to provide an important feature that has long been discussed since the concept of cross-blockchain atomic transactions was proposed in 2013.
Users can already start exchanging coins between DCR, BTC and LTC using Decred tools. Currently from the command line, but soon they will be included in the wallet interface.
DCR coin distribution
The distribution of DCR coins is as follows:
- 60% – reward for PoW miners;
- 30% – reward for PoS miners;
- 10% – for the development of the project.
The total issue of DCR is limited and amounts to 21 million coins. The Decred system provides for a gradual decrease in the block reward. Initially, the block reward was 31 DCR (31.19582664 to be exact). In the future, every 6144 blocks (approximately once every 22 days), the reward will decrease by 1%.
The premine mined 8% of the total volume of 21 million coins (1.68 million in total). The mined DCR cryptocurrency was divided equally between compensation for development costs and an “airdrop of DCR”.
The development of the Decred cryptocurrency was financed by Company 0 and individual investors. The cost of developing the project in terms of developer fees is about $300 thousand, which was paid to the developers. An additional amount of approximately $115,000 was allocated for related costs. Company 0 felt that the fairest way to offset these costs was through a small premine. The model is unusual in that no developer received any amount of DCR cryptocurrency for free - all coins owned by the developers were either purchased at a rate of $0.49 per coin, or paid as payment for work completed at the same rate. The developers have committed not to trade DCR for 12 months, and Company 0 for 24 months.
The remaining 840,000 coins, 50% of the premine and 4% of the total number of coins, were distributed evenly across the list of participants - this is called an “airdrop”, or reset of coins. Registration was available until January 2020; not everyone was allowed to participate.
Wallet system of the Decred project
Especially for the convenience of users, the developers of the Decred system offered several types of wallets, as well as a simple miner for mining coins.
- Web wallet. A simple, convenient and fast fork of the BitPay's wallet. This keeper provides access to all the main features of cryptocurrency: sending and receiving virtual money, making transactions with multiple multi-signatures.
- Command line wallet. This is an option for those system participants who are professionally versed in program code. It makes it possible to mine PoS and then receive rewards.
- GPU miner. A simple and at the same time powerful program for mining blocks.
Where to buy Decred tokens (DCR)
You can buy DCT coins on the following exchanges: Bittrex, Poloniex, YoBit
Summary and prospects of the Decred project
Decred is an open, progressive and self-funding cryptocurrency with a community-based governance system integrated into its blockchain. Moreover, the project was completely financed from the pockets of the developers, and not through the usual ICO.
Looking at the roadmap of the Decred cryptocurrency, we can say that the developers are well on track to fulfill their plans, although there is some delay. As for the prospects for the Decred cryptocurrency, it has the foundations for further successful development and, accordingly, an increase in the value of the coin.
The Future of Decred Cryptocurrency
To summarize, the greatest strength of the Decred cryptocurrency is its development team and dedicated community. Almost all development participants are professionals in their field, crypto enthusiasts who came to the project from other large cryptocurrency platforms.
Considering many advantages, such as a unique mining system, absolute decentralization and the ability for users to vote on how to improve the network, Decred has every chance of achieving great success in the cryptocurrency market.
Mining Decred cryptocurrency
Earlier in the article, the Decred cryptocurrency mining system was already described. Now it’s worth talking about the practical side of this issue. In particular, about the choice of equipment, software and mining pool. Regarding the wallet, everything is simple - you need to download Decrediton, an electronic wallet from the developers. You should download it from the official Decred website.
The first thing a miner should take into account is that mining Decred using video cards is no longer relevant. There is currently a wide selection of ASIC miners for the Blake256R14 algorithm. And they make GPU farms useless. Therefore, to make money on the Decred cryptocurrency, you need to buy specialized equipment.
We should also mention mining programs. Specialized software is usually required when using video cards. And when mining with ASICs, it is no longer needed. But the chosen operating system is still important. And here most miners choose Linux. It is recommended to pay attention to the Hive OS build.
Choosing an ASIC miner for mining Decred cryptocurrency
You need to start mining Decred cryptocurrency by choosing an ASIC miner. There are more than a dozen different models on the market. But it’s worth considering: due to increasing complexity and falling prices, the choice is actually not very large. Most of the devices are no longer relevant in terms of profitability. This applies to the following models:
- iBeLink DSM6T.
- Innosilikon D9 (and D9+) DecredMaster.
- Halong Mining DragonMint B29.
- Obelisk DCR1.
- StrongU STU-U1 (and STU-U1+).
- FFMiner Decred D18 and DS19.
In theory, as prices for the Decred cryptocurrency rise, the payback on the listed devices will also improve. But by that time, new equipment for mining DCR tokens will appear. And then the old models will no longer pay for themselves. Therefore, today we need to consider only two models: Antminer DR5 and Whatsminer D1.
MicroBT Whatsminer D1
You should start with the MicroBT Whatsminer D1 model. This ASIC was developed by Pangolin Miner. And today it is considered the most profitable model for mining cryptocurrency using the Blake25614R algorithm. And this doesn't just apply to Decred.
MicroBT Whatsminer D1 has the following characteristics:
- Hashrate - 48 TH/s.
- Energy consumption - 2200 Watt.
- Noise level - 75 dB.
- Price - from 4000 to 5000 US dollars.
But now there is one important problem. All produced ASIC miners of this model have already been sold out. And the next delivery is expected only in December 2020. Moreover, many devices have already been sold through pre-order. Therefore, if you want to mine Decred cryptocurrency, you should think about buying it now.
Bitmain Antminer DR5
Antminer DR5 is a replacement for the already outdated DR3 model from Bitmain. But it has two serious drawbacks. Firstly, it is inferior in its characteristics to its competitor from Pangolin. Secondly, it will not go on sale until December 2020. Moreover, the release may be postponed to a later date.
The described model has the following characteristics:
- Hashrate - 34 TH/s.
- Energy consumption - 1800 Watt.
- Noise level - 76 dB.
- Price - from 3300 to 3800 US dollars.
Compared to its competitor, the model from Bitmain has a lower price. Moreover, over time it may decrease even more, which will make the device a cheaper and more convenient option.
Mining pools for mining Decred cryptocurrency
The last thing you need to choose is a mining pool for mining Decred cryptocurrency. And today there are a number of suitable options for both beginners and experienced miners. An important point: you should not mine Decred cryptocurrency alone. According to the developers of this coin, this approach is not profitable.
In general, it is worth paying attention to the following mining pools for DCR mining:
- Luxor Mining. A simple and convenient option with a low commission.
- F2Pool. Considered one of the best. The only drawback is the high complexity of setup.
- Coinmine. A fairly reliable service with average commissions. Although sometimes there are complaints about low hashrate.
There are also Suprnova and DecredPool pools. But they have a lot of negative reviews. You can check the quality of their work at your own peril and risk.
