What is Decred?
In this article, I would like to give you a detailed review of the Decred blockchain network and its native cryptocurrency – the DCR coin. The Decred network is a hybrid blockchain that uses the Proof of Work and Proof of Stake consensus mechanism simultaneously. The main goal of the creators was to create a better version of the Bitcoin network after noticing that decision making in the BTC community became more and more centralized. The block rewards are divided between the miners, voters and dev team at a ratio of 60%:30%:10%. Decred is one of the most promising and rapidly growing cryptocurrencies boasting with great speed, ability to improve and connection to its community.
The maximum supply of DCR coins is 21 million with expectancy that the last block will be mined in the year 2120.
Advantages
One of the main advantages of the Decred network is that it is a hybrid consensus system. It uses both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake mechanisms with the quality of unique adaptability. Other notable pros are:
- The whole project is very community driven with enabled decentralized decision making
- Resistant to 51% attacks due to the hybrid consensus mechanism
- Censorship resistant and smart contracts functioning on the public proposal platform
Disadvantages
Even though this project doesn’t have as many deficiencies, there still are some. One of them is that the project is relatively new, and the market adoption of the coin is still somewhat minimal. Maybe the biggest challenge that the network will have to go through is moving from a man-managed fund to a decentralized DAO. Other disadvantages worth noting are:
- Transaction time is relatively high. It can take roughly 5 minutes to confirm a transaction
History and Evolution
The Decred cryptocurrency was launched by the Chicago-based Company 0 back on 7th February 2016. Later that year on 25th April, the Decred mainnet version 1.0.0 was released. The project was created as a result of the frustration of a group of Bitcoin developers with the increasing centralization of the BTC network. With the help of Alex Jacob-Pitt, they founded Company 0 and started developing Decred. The project was founded by the CEO of the company, Jake Yacom-Piatt, with the help of fellow co-founders Alex Yacom-Piatt, Dave Collins, David Hill, John Vernaleo and Josh Rickmar.
The current stage of development brings software version 1.3.1 so that everyone can participate in the governance of the network. This also adds a Governance page to the official GUI wallet and a Paliteiavoter for the CLI users.
Decred’s Future
The future of the project is pretty much dictated by the passion of the team to make a network that rectifies all of the shortcomings of the cryptocurrency goliath – Bitcoin. One of the main aspects of Decred is being community oriented by incentivising its users to be active and contribute. There is also a development reward pool in place that will fund all of the future updates and development of the network.
The expected updates that will be coming to the network in late 2018 and early 2019 include integration of Lighting Network, growth of the marketing strategy for the project, further updates and integration for the official wallet, updates to the privacy of the network, optimizing the scalability of the cryptocurrency and even a proposal for a decentralized exchange.
Decred Blockchain
The Decred blockchain is a decentralized peer to peer network that uses both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake consensus mechanisms making it a hybrid network. It uses the Blake256 r14 hashing algorithm and splits the rewards 60% to the miners, 30% to the stakers and 10% goes in the development pool to finance future updates and additions. Block rewards get reduced roughly every 21 days or every 6,144 blocks by 1%.
The rough block time is 5 minutes and 2 seconds with a size of up to 1MB. The network automatically adjusts for difficulty every 144 blocks, which is roughly 12 hours.
Decred Nodes
There are currently two types of nodes on the Decred network – Light nodes and Full Nodes. Full nodes are the validators of the system. They require a complete download of the blockchain transactional history in order to operate. If there are not enough full nodes on the network, clients will not be able to connect to the network adequately. On the other hand, Light nodes don’t need to download the full blockchain, as they just need the block headers to be operational. They are serviced by the full nodes and use a Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) method to verify transactions.
Decred Additional Features
A great feature of the Decred network is the possibility of transactions to expire after a certain amount of time has passed. This keeps the blockchain lean and the network free.
How to Get Decred
If you would like to get a hold of some DCR coins, you have two options available to you initially. First, you can mine the cryptocurrency with mining hardware. Second, you can straight up buy Decred cryptocurrency from an exchange platform that supports it. Alternatively, if you already own DCR or have just bought/mined some, you can start to also stake the coins on the network and generate a passive income.
Where to Buy Decred
The Decred coin is supported by a lot of popular crypto exchanges. Unfortunately, at this moment there is no way to buy DCR coins with fiat currency, but you can buy other more popular coins like Bitcoin or Ethereum and trade them for Decred. The exchanges shown below are what I consider to be the best and easiest to use.
| Exchange | Cryptocurrencies | Fiat Money | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Dragonex
|
Bitcoin, Ethereum | – | Trade now |
|
huobi
|
Bitcoin, Ethereum | – | Trade now |
|
Binance
|
Bitcoin, Binance Coin | EUR, USD, GBP | Trade now |
How to Mine Decred
One of the options you have to obtain Decred is through the use of mining hardware. Although it sounds well enough, just like in many other cryptocurrencies, ASIC mining has completely ruined GPU mining and is dominating the mining scene. While GPUs will work, they’re far from efficient or profitable, thus if you would like to mine, you will need to get yourself an ASIC miner like the ones shown below. They are what I consider the best ones out there. Please bear in mind that these machines can consume large amounts of electricity and radiate a lot of heat. For example, Bitmain’s miner is 1410W, which is equivalent to a larger kitchen appliance, working 24/7. In addition to the heat and consumption, the miners are also quite noisy, so have it in mind when choosing where to place them.
| Мining Hardware | Hash Rate | Power | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baikal BK-B | 160 Gh/s | 410W | $ 399 | buy now |
| Bitmain Antminer DR3 | 7.8 Th/s | 1410W | $ 134 | buy now |
| FFMiner DS19 | 3.1 Th/s | 680W | $ 1180 | buy now |
Wallets for Decred
In order to be able to access and control your Decred coins, you will need a wallet. One of your best options is the official core Decred wallet that is supported and backed by the development team and it’s called Decredition. There are two versions of the wallet – GUI and CLI. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) version is compatible with Windows, MacOS, and Linux, and it is focused towards most users and features an easy to use layout. The Command Line Input (CLI) version of the wallet is focused more around users that need the lightest version of the wallet possible and it is compatible with RaspberryPi.
For your convenience I will give you this Decredition Installation Guide All OS. You can find installation guidelines for Windows, Mac and Linux. Please don’t forget to backup your wallet as it will help in the case that you lose the wallet or device it is installed on.
For your convenience I will give you this Decredition Installation Guide All OS. You can find installation guidelines for Windows, Mac and Linux. Please don’t forget to backup your wallet as it will help in the case that you lose the wallet or device it is installed on.
Alternative Wallets
If the official wallet is not what you are looking for, there are a few alternatives that you can consider. Alternative wallets can offer different features that are not supported by the official wallet that can range from an improved UI, integrated exchanges and even multi-coin support. Below I have listed the alternatives that are available to you.
Desktop Wallets
Hardware Wallets
Staking Decred
Staking Decred is fairly simple. Once you obtain some DCR coins, you will need to keep them in the official wallet. After you configure the wallet and unlock it for staking, you will need to wait for 256 blocks to go by without any change to the balance of the wallet in order to be eligible for rewards. From that point on, it is a waiting game.
Decred Network Security
Although Decred is a great project that can offer great levels of security to its community, there is one major flaw. Decred is still susceptible to Orphan-based mining monopoly attack and Economic mining monopoly attack. In simpler words, if an entity controls over 50% of the mining power or over 50% of the staking power in the network, they can maliciously effect and control the blockchain.
News and Useful Links
If you would like to always keep yourself updated regarding any news or changes regarding Decred, you can start by visiting their official website. Alternatively, you can visit their social media accounts and start following the project.