Decred (DCR) is a cryptocurrency whose name is a portmanteau of “decentralized credit” Launched in February 2016, the project has been created to let the community approve all changes to the protocol in a decentralized way. The internal voting system that Decred uses is one of its key features which helps to differentiate it from coins such as Bitcoin. The founders were looking to facilitate interactions in the community, providing open governance on the platform and sustainable funding policies for the users
What is Decred?
The Decred (DCR) project was created by the blockchain developer Vlad Zamfir. The name itself comes from the fact that the currency is built on top of Bitcoin’s (BTC) core. Back in 2016, a few exchanges listed Decred. It is, in fact, one of the better performing coins out there when it comes to overall market cap as well as market price. Because of this, many people also refer to Decred as “Bitcoin-Lite”. In an interview in 2017, Vlad Zamfir said: “While we are similar to Bitcoin in the sense that we are “lite” versions of Bitcoin, we have more unique features.” The founders wanted to develop a currency which could be used for day-to-day transactions while also being used for microtransactions.
How is DCR different from Bitcoin?
In order to compare the two cryptocurrencies, it is necessary to understand some key similarities and differences. Both cryptocurrencies can be thought of as a form of decentralized digital cash. More specifically: DCR is a cryptocurrency that has all the advantages of Bitcoin, including instant confirmation times, blockchain scalability, higher transaction capacity, etc. However, unlike Bitcoin, DCR includes a number of features that were designed to make the protocol more user-friendly and easier to understand for the general user.
What are the key features of DCR?
Decred’s developers have made some huge improvements to the blockchain’s consensus algorithm. The changes implemented are rather significant, but they have been well-received and their ability to protect against blockchain fork and denial-of-service attacks has attracted developers to the project. Among the changes that Decred has made, the most noticeable one is the ability to increase the block size limit to 8MB. That means that all network nodes can store approximately 48 megabytes. This change enables greater functionality within the Decred blockchain, but it also entails the danger of massive scale changes, a fact that the community is careful not to ignore.
Who created Decred?
The originator of the Decred project is Brandon Doell. Mr. Doell has spent most of his life building several very successful web businesses, after founding and selling NewMarket Communications, a tech marketing and web design company he established DoellNet Interactive which was sold to PeopleOnline.com in 2010. Since then, he has been active in the financial sector and is a founding member of the Steemit project. What is Decred growth? How can Decred investors benefit? During the first three years of Decred, it saw an increase in its value of 5,300%. From March 2016, the price of a single Decred was $2.51. By December 2017, the price of Decred rose to $54.89.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrency has evolved into a highly accessible and easy-to-understand tool. This guide aimed to provide you with a very brief introduction to what all these terms mean and how they can be used in practice. It is definitely not meant to teach you everything there is to know about cryptocurrency, but rather to introduce you to the basics and help you get started.