Twelve years have passed since the inception of Bitcoin, and during this time, blockchain engineers have developed 10,000 digital coins. Most of them were created to improve the project of Satoshi Nakamoto, but no one has succeeded in truly surpassing the unknown genius. However, healthy competition is the ideal state of any market. The emergence of alternative coins has stimulated the digital gold development team to introduce innovative solutions for the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem and attracted public attention to the blockchain industry. Some altcoins are finding practical uses and becoming an integral part of the new digital economy.
This review will present the Decred cryptocurrency, created by the programmers who worked in the Bitcoin team. According to the creators, the Decred digital coin, while maintaining the best qualities of the first cryptocurrency, will be completely rid of its shortcomings.
Main characteristics of Bitcoin
Bitcoin has several important features that set it apart from conventional currencies:
- decentralization;
- easy registration;
- anonymity;
- complete transparency;
- low commission;
- fast transactions;
- the impossibility of canceling the operation;
Main features of DCR
Improved management model. USP Decred ensures inclusiveness in decision-making through voting and makes this blockchain project a distributed network with limited miner influence. A unique stakeholder management function enables the community to launch and drive innovation. The lottery system helps determine which stakeholders vote on each block and collect the subsidy. Users can control the creation of blocks, earning up to 2.25% of the reward through participation in the management model. This makes Decred extremely attractive to long-term investors.
Decred uses SPV (Simple Payment verification) support for its users, which allows them to make payments quickly without downloading the entire blockchain while maintaining the security of transactions. Each transfer of funds is processed using Schnorr’s n-of-n embedded signature system, making it impossible for participants to identify who authorized or denied a transaction.
Decred is independent of centralized exchanges to exchange various digital currencies. Its users can conduct trusted OTC trades through cross-chain atomic swaps without the involvement of a third party. This improves the interaction between currencies and meets the demand for new efficiency gains that add value to investors. Atomic swaps using Lightning Network payment channels are more powerful and easier to implement than regular peer-to-peer chains.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros of the Decred blockchain ecosystem:
- Decentralization;
- Open source;
- Self-financing and self-government;
- Integration of atomic swaps and the Lightning Network;
- Two consensus algorithms.
The disadvantages include the rather low price and weak distribution of the cryptocurrency. According to skeptics, the project does not offer anything that is not found in other, more popular, cryptosystems.
Project development plans
The project team is working on improving the PoS mining system, developing marketing, and launching a decentralized exchange service. The implementation of these plans will reduce the influence of speculators on the pricing process and improve the liquidity of the ecosystem tokens. Much attention is paid to the confidentiality of network participants and the modernization of the self-government system.
If the team can create great features that extend Decred in a way that makes it more useful to community members, then this cryptocurrency could become more popular and grow in value. However, if the community is unable to self-organize for quick decision-making, Decred will squeeze out new blockchain projects with improved functionality.
In general, Decred cryptocurrency is a stable project created exclusively by developers. Some experts consider DCR to be a promising coin, which lacks a “push” to move to the top, others as another dummy, lost in the shadow of Bitcoin. The future of the coin depends on both community members and the situation in the crypto industry. Ecosystem issues are discussed on the Decred blog on the official website.
