Decred (/ˈdi:ˈkred/, /dɪˈkred/, dee-cred) is an open-source, community-based cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin^[1].

Overview

Decred was launched in February 2016^[2] by the bitcoin developers that engineered btcsuite^[3], an alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation written in the Go (golang) programming language and is used by development projects such as Ethereum, Factom, BitGo, OpenBazaar, and the Lightning Network^[4].

Blockchain Architecture

Decred is designed with a built-in governance system to resolve centralization and governance conflicts present within the Bitcoin system^[6] and address the 'tragedy of the commons' that can occur within decentralized cryptocurrencies^[5].

Decred's governance system is engineered with a hybridized Proof-of-Work (PoW)and, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol^[8]. The design was inspired by the MEMCOIN2: A Hybrid Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake Crypto-currency^[7][9] technical paper published in 2013, and the Cryptocurrencies without Proof of Work white paper published in 2014.

Hash Function

Decred uses BLAKE-256 as its hash function. BLAKE-256 is based around a HAIFA construction that incorporates a variation of the ChaCha stream cipher by Daniel J. Bernstein. The BLAKE-256 hashing function has high-performance ratings on x86-64 microarchitecture^[10].

Proof-of-Activity

Hybridized Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake systems are also referred to as Proof-of-Activity (PoA). PoA is a consensus protocol introduced by the Proof of Activity: Extending Bitcoin’s Proof of Work via Proof of Stake whitepaper^[11], co-authored by Litecoin founder Charlie Lee.

History

On February 7, 2016, the Decred mainnet binaries were released under v0.0.1^[13].

Decred v1.0.0 was released on April 25, 2017^[12].

Decred developers executed an atomic swap between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) in September 2017^[14][15].