What is Decred?
Decred is not your typical cryptocurrency. According to its website, “Decred is an open and progressive cryptocurrency with a system of community-based governance integrated into its blockchain.”
Decred is a fork of Bitcoin but has significant differences.
How is it different from Bitcoin?
Bitcoin mining has become extremely competitive and expensive discouraging individual miners from coming into the fray and gradually but inevitably creating an imbalance of power. A handful of miners and some major Bitcoin mining pool hold the majority of power. This has threatened the very essence of Bitcoin – decentralization. Bitcoin mining has also led to expensive ASICs being built that are only meant for one and only one purpose – to mine Bitcoin.
Just like Bitcoin Gold, Decred has attempted to restore decentralization by allowing users who do not own a miner to keep a check on miners. This is achieved through a hybrid consensus mechanism of both PoW and PoS or Proof of Stake. Just remember before you try mining Decred, you will need a good Decred wallet.
How does Decred’s PoS work?
In DecredPoS, a token holder is able to validate transactions virtually to receive rewards. The token holder can also vote on network proposals. This allows them to have a direct say in the progression of the project. Stakeholders lock up Decred tokens in exchange for a ticket that is randomly selected to validate a particular block. This reduces the chance of fraud and collusion because the validator can lose their tokens if they cheat the system.
60% of the newly generated tokens go to the PoW miner, 30% to the PoS voters and 10% goes towards a development subsidy. In Bitcoin mining, 100% of the reward goes to the miner. The development subsidy goes to developers for their work if the Decred community approves the payout.
Decred and Bitcoin both have a total supply of 21 million coins. 8% was pre-mined in Decred with a split between 4% distributed in an airdrop and 4% went to Company 0 and developers who helped to fund the project.
Only individuals who had registered in advance for the airdrop event received the 4% via airdrop. This was done to create awareness and widespread adoption.
How to convert DCR to BTC
If you want to perform a DCR/BTC exchange, you can use some of the popular cryptocurrency exchanges to do so. Ensure that you do not end up paying a high transaction or withdrawal fees.
What’s new with Decred?
Decred announced that Decred and Litecoin completed an on-chain atomic swap which essentially enables a Litecoin and Decred holder to conduct over the counter trades without getting a third party involved. Decred is continually under development and has some unique new features which are advantageous over Bitcoin.
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