summary: Decred (/ˈdi:ˈkred/, /dɪˈkred/, dee-cred) is an open-source, community-based cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin.
content: Decred (/ˈdi:ˈkred/, /dɪˈkred/, dee-cred) is an open-source, community-based cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin. Overview Decred was launched in February 2016 by the bitcoin developers that engineered btcsuite, 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. Blockchain Architecture Decred is designed with a built-in governance system to resolve centralization and governance conflicts present within the Bitcoin system and address the 'tragedy of the commons' that can occur within decentralized cryptocurrencies. Decred's governance system is engineered with a hybridized Proof-of-Work (PoW)and, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol. The design was inspired by the MEMCOIN2: A Hybrid Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake Crypto-currency 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. 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, co-authored by Litecoin founder Charlie Lee. History On February 7, 2016, the Decred mainnet binaries were released under v0.0.1. Decred v1.0.0 was released on April 25, 2017. Decred developers executed an atomic swap between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) in September 2017.