Decred
Decred (/ˈdi:ˈkred/, /dɪˈkred/, dee-cred) is an open-source, community-based cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin. 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
Hybrid PoW/PoS Governance System
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), 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.
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.
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 micro architecture.
Cross-chain Atomic Swaps
Decred developers created the first functioning cryptocurrency atomic swap between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) on September 19, 2017.
History
Development Milestones
On February 7, 2016 the Decred mainnet binaries were released under v0.0.1.
Decred v1.0.0 was released on April 25, 2017.