From 7a7e1bc2851461ca4cb5f873be319130581a1abb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: lindseymmc <60274429+lindseymmc@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2020 09:28:37 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 01/20] Add PR Materials March 2020 Transferring this over from Google Drive --- PR Materials March 2020 | 271 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 271 insertions(+) create mode 100644 PR Materials March 2020 diff --git a/PR Materials March 2020 b/PR Materials March 2020 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02d6e1c --- /dev/null +++ b/PR Materials March 2020 @@ -0,0 +1,271 @@ +#Target audience +Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalists to Futurists. For high-level messaging purposes, these audiences can be grouped under three umbrellas: + +##Technical audience +Developers, members of the Decred community, ecosystem partners (exchanges, wallets, applications etc.) and people who are familiar with the technical nuances of blockchain technology. + +##Target Audience: Developers +From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart — but trusted — devs to come build on Decred. + +##Investor audience +Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are interested in investing in cryptocurrency. + +##Mainstream audience +Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. + +*Decred’s end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* + +#Key messages + +[Foundational messaging] (https://github.com/decredcommunity/pr/blob/release/foundational-messaging.md) + +##Origin Story +The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named ‘tacotime’ started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside ‘_ingsoc’, another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. +_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime’s MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. + +##What is Decred? Elevator Pitch +Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. +- Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury make it secure, adaptable, and sustainable. +- Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. +- As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. + +##Decentralization - The Decred Ethos + +The founding principle of Decred is decentralization. Even its name reflects this: Decred = Decentralized Credits. Decentralization is one of crypto’s core ideals, and something that Decred’s founders saw was missing from Bitcoin. While the original cryptocurrency talks about being decentralized, the reality is that power is centralized among a small group, namely developers and miners, who make the rules and decide how to steer the project. Decred was created to give the community (and every coin holder who opts in) a voice, more fairly distribute power, and champion individual sovereignty—the power to control one’s own destiny. + +##A Superior Store of Value + +According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it’s widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. + +The real question is: “Which coins will be the last coins standing?” The coins best designed and positioned to establish themselves as quality stores of value to last for decades. + +Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stocks or work-tokens) or unpegged liquid monetary instruments. DCR is the latter. Its end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money. + +##Governance/Adaptability + +Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules a group for people follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). + +If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project will work (consensus-level) and how it will evolve and spend its money (project-level). These important decisions can be either on-chain or off-chain—both present complex circumstances that shape how decisions are made and by whom. + +While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it’s the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all — not just a select few. + +##Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is + +In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world’s largest social network. The founding members pledged $10 million in Libra tokens to be part of the network, and help fund the project’s initial development. + +For most technology projects—especially those that are not VC-funded—finding the funds to fuel development is extremely difficult. This is even harder in a yet-to-be proven space like blockchain and crypto. Decred stands apart as a project that is self-funded, meaning anyone who joins the community buys into a system that reinvests in its own development. + +Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community’s dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. + +##Privacy: A Balanced Approach + +Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No one wants their barista to know how many coins remain in their wallet when they pick up their latte. Digital bearer assets come with certain risks, and nobody wants to become an easy target for thieves because their high net worth was publicly available. + +The topic is complex and involves many tradeoffs. Blockchains are public ledgers, which means all transactions can be viewed by anyone. Many coins have taken various approaches to privacy, including zero knowledge proofs, ring signatures, Mimblewimble (no public addresses), and more. + +Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes “sound money” (which must be both fungible and immutable) to strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. + +Privacy Messaging + +1. Decred’s privacy implementation is simple. + - The math, concept, and code are all straightforward and well-understood. + - Only several hundred lines of code are required, minimizing the opportunities for error. + +2. Decred’s privacy implementation is creative. + - The process leverages Decred’s unique governance system to create user anonymity. + - The same concepts can add privacy off-chain on the Lightning Network. + +3. Decred’s privacy implementation is adaptable. + - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. + - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. + +##Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) + +The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project’s consensus system. + +Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems, which each have different security properties. The Decred hybrid consensus system combines the best aspects of PoW with those of PoS, to create a network that is far more secure than other consensus systems. + +In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. + +##Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model + +As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Decred community welcomes input from all its members. When it comes to actually building the platform, the project is based on open source software. Code is written by contractors, who are free to jump in and contribute based on their level of interest and skill. If the community likes what it sees, it will pay an hourly rate. As an added bonus, contractors can work anywhere in the world as long as they have Internet access. + +The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. + +##Tagline +Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. + +Secure. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. +Adaptable. Decred's built-in governance systems facilitate formal methods of making consensus changes and project-level decisions that avoid community-splitting forks. +Sustainable. Decred's block reward system allows the Treasury to sustain itself over time - no outside funding necessary. This ensures the funding the project needs to realize the community's collective decisions. It also gives contributors the freedom to do the work that interests them most (and get paid). +Vision Statement & Values (an aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term) +Decred's vision is to build a self-directed, decentralized future ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. It will be built upon the pillars of sovereignty, fairness, transparency, inclusivity, privacy, and security. Everyone can vote on the rules and project-level decision making proportionately to their stake, yielding decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. + +Sovereignty + +Decred believes that individuals are capable of collectively making better decisions via direct and formal sovereignty in which they have control over their own actions - without being subjugated to a representative, which typically involves self-dealing and conflicts of interest. + +Fairness + +Decred believes that the time has come to create a fairer system that benefits all participants equally - replacing the uneven playing field created by legacy financial systems. + +Transparency + +Decred believes that access to information is the cornerstone of informed, sustainable decision-making, and every stakeholder has a right to full transparency. + +Inclusivity + +Decred believes that no thoughts and ideas should be excluded - all stakeholder voices deserve to be heard and considered in the decision-making process. + +Privacy + +Decred believes in the fundamental right to privacy and in every person's freedom to choose the amount of privacy that's right for them. + +Security + +Decred believes that security is the key to building a long-term store of value, which in turn is the key to creating the money of the future. + +##Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). +Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptability, and sustainability make it a superior long-term store of value. It is achieving this aim by building the world's first truly decentralized autonomous organization. + +##Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) + +Technical Audience +Decred is designed to provide developers and community members with the most secure and adaptable cryptocurrency. It does so through on- and off-chain governance systems that leverage multi-stakeholder inclusivity to make collective decisions on consensus changes, block approval, budget, policy, and the development plan. Decred's self-sustaining, flexible contractor model allows anyone to join Decred at any time to work on the open-source projects they find most interesting and fulfilling - autonomously and voluntarily. Those who prove their value and merit to the project can become paid contractors. + +Investor Audience +Decred is a cryptocurrency designed to be a superior long-term store of value. The hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system provides an additional layer of network security, while stakeholders control budget and policy to make the currency more adaptable. With ten percent of each block reward going to the project Treasury, Decred is completely self-funded. This financial model reduces conflicts of interest and enables ongoing development powered by a unique contractor model that allows contributors to receive payment for work they find interesting. Together, these systems provide solid protection against value-loss events like chain splits and hard forks, giving Decred the resilience to stand the test of time. + +Mainstream Audience +Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decentralized, fairer, and sovereign alternative to traditional money. In the current system, a centralized authority such as a bank or government holds the power. With Decred, the community members own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. The result is a secure and adaptable currency that is a superior store of value. Everyone is invested and actively involved in helping Decred succeed. + +Terms to describe Decred + +Adaptable +Built to last +Cohesive +Community-directed +Decentralized +Enduring +Fair(er) +Minority fork-resistant +Future-focused +Inclusive +Iterative +Hybrid PoW+PoS +Long-term +OG (Original gangsters - founders involved since BTC Suite) +Pioneers +Rebellious +Reliable +Resilient +Revolutionary +Secure +Serious dev talent +Self-directed +Self-sustaining/Self-funding/Self-starters +Sound money +Sovereign +Transparent +Values-based + +##Principles +- Free and Open-Source Software - All software developed as part of Decred shall be free and open source-software. +- Free Speech and Consideration - Everyone has the right to communicate opinions and ideas without fear of censorship. Consideration shall be given to all constructive speech that is based in fact and reason. +- Multi-Stakeholder Inclusivity - Inclusivity represents a multi-stakeholder system and an active effort shall be maintained to include a diverse set of views and users. +- Incremental Privacy and Security - Privacy and security are priorities and shall be balanced with the complexity of their implementations. Additional privacy and security technology shall be implemented on a continuing and incremental basis, both proactively and on-demand in response to attacks. +- Fixed Finite Supply - Issuance is finite and the total issuance shall not exceed 20,999,999.99800912 DCR, with a per-block subsidy that adjusts every 6,144 blocks (approximately 21.33 days) by reducing by a factor of 100/101. The genesis block subsidy starts at 31.19582664 DCR. +- Universal Fungibility - Universal fungibility is fundamental to Decred being a store of value and attacks against it shall be actively monitored and countermeasures pursued as necessary. + +#Credibility Bullet Points + +- Decred is a top cryptocurrency by market cap (36) +- Decred is known as the project with the most bitcoin developers +- Decred was created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. +- Company Zero, one of the original Decred developers, helped develop btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. +- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model +- Decred is the only non-btccore based project to implement Lightning Network +- Decred produced open-source software for the public good, including tools for atomic swaps, zkc secure chat, tumblebit, DEX +- Completed the first consensus change vote in the history of cryptocurrency +- More than 80 contributors from 35 countries spanning five continents +- Charlie Lee, Jimmy Song, Willy Woo, Chris Burniske, Joel Monegro, Murad Mahmudov, and many more have made strong public statements of support + +#Key stats + +- Decred launched on February 8, 2016 +- Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split +- A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) +- Link to current stats: key stats exist here. +- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. Currently there’s around $21 million in the treasury. +- In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +- Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. +- Politeia average voter turnout is 32%, average participation for consensus rule changes is greater than 50%. +- Decred Privacy has made shuffled 16% of the current supply of coins. +- Most of the other blockchain voter participation stats are 1-3%, sometimes less. +- Privacy: 100% of Monero is private (default). Last I checked 3% of zcash is private. + +##Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words + +For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto’s decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. + +Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or passed proposals for) some significant industry firsts: +- First-ever crypto atomic swap, between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) +- Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred is one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). +- Built the first-ever off-chain proposal system (Politeia) that allows for public discourse and voting on project-level decisions and how to spend the treasury. +- First on-chain Consensus change vote +- First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. **There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. +- Automate treasury. DASH did it first, and Decred’s won’t be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via attack. + +Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. + +#Additional collateral +- [Images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) +- Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org +- Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. + - [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) + +#Topics and key conversations we’d like to join +- Privacy - It’s a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. +- Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. +- Governance. What’s the best way to make decentralized decisions? +- DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations). +- Individual sovereignty versus delegated, agency problems, as it relates to money and the wider political system. Technology exists such that why is it unreasonable to endow the public with sovereignty to make decisions, rather than delegate them to an elite class who profits from them and serves their own interests first. +- What project maintains the OG principles of crypto? Decred continues to build the new financial system in a fairer way, and its continues to fund projects for the benefit of the entire crypto ecosystem (atomic swaps, tumblebit (privacy implementation), DEX) +- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it’s quite difficult. +- Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. + +[Education resources repository] (https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) + +#FAQs +Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin? +No. Decred is a separate cryptocurrency created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. Decred's founders looked at what was successful with Bitcoin and what they could add by baking in formalized governance from the start. The goal was to create a structure whereby anyone in the community with skin in the game could own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. + +How is Decred different from Bitcoin? + +Decred is distinct from Bitcoin in three key ways: + +1. Secure: Decred's is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin thanks to its hybrid PoW/PoS model that places checks and balances between miners and stakeholders. +2. Adaptable: Decred has built-in formalized governance that allows it to make changes to its consensus rules while avoiding hard forks. +3. Sustainable: Both consistent funding through block rewards and the skin in the game model of stakeholder voting make Decred sustainable in the long-term. Where other projects are discussing developer funding, Decred is not only paying developers around the world - it's also autonomously selecting community leads, its PR firm, and building a decentralized exchange ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. + +Why haven't I ever heard of Decred? + +Decred has been quietly building over the past 3.5 years. This has allowed the community to focus on creating a superior long-term store of value that will stand on its own - marketing can't substitute for a great product. + +When was Decred first launched? + +Decred launched on February 8, 2016. All upgrade decisions since then have been approved by a super majority of the stakeholders so that no hard forks have ever been necessary. + +What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? + +10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/. + +#Unique Value Proposition +A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) +**Governance**: While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. +**Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. +**Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Decred is/was the first cryptocurrency to do this. +**Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. +**Security**: In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +**Inclusivity**: Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. From 3fab74604127a38c74e7f37dddd1debf3f25b548 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:10:00 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 02/20] rename file to have .md extension, all lowercase and no spaces .md extension is necessary to signal that the file has Markdown syntax. GitHub, for example, uses this extension to determine file type and show it properly. File names with all lowercase characters without spaces look prettier in URLs and are more convenient when manipulating the file on the file system. --- PR Materials March 2020 => pr-materials-march-2020.md | 0 1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) rename PR Materials March 2020 => pr-materials-march-2020.md (100%) diff --git a/PR Materials March 2020 b/pr-materials-march-2020.md similarity index 100% rename from PR Materials March 2020 rename to pr-materials-march-2020.md From 24d0c50d3db4591a46029a34dc4067ecbebbab00 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:14:44 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 03/20] add blank lines after headings Markdown needs this to show headings properly. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 14 ++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 02d6e1c..6dffe2d 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -1,16 +1,21 @@ #Target audience + Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalists to Futurists. For high-level messaging purposes, these audiences can be grouped under three umbrellas: ##Technical audience + Developers, members of the Decred community, ecosystem partners (exchanges, wallets, applications etc.) and people who are familiar with the technical nuances of blockchain technology. ##Target Audience: Developers + From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart — but trusted — devs to come build on Decred. ##Investor audience + Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are interested in investing in cryptocurrency. ##Mainstream audience + Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. *Decred’s end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* @@ -20,10 +25,12 @@ Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the c [Foundational messaging] (https://github.com/decredcommunity/pr/blob/release/foundational-messaging.md) ##Origin Story + The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named ‘tacotime’ started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside ‘_ingsoc’, another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. _ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime’s MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. ##What is Decred? Elevator Pitch + Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. - Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury make it secure, adaptable, and sustainable. - Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. @@ -94,6 +101,7 @@ As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Dec The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. ##Tagline + Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. Secure. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. @@ -127,6 +135,7 @@ Security Decred believes that security is the key to building a long-term store of value, which in turn is the key to creating the money of the future. ##Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). + Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptability, and sustainability make it a superior long-term store of value. It is achieving this aim by building the world's first truly decentralized autonomous organization. ##Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) @@ -171,6 +180,7 @@ Transparent Values-based ##Principles + - Free and Open-Source Software - All software developed as part of Decred shall be free and open source-software. - Free Speech and Consideration - Everyone has the right to communicate opinions and ideas without fear of censorship. Consideration shall be given to all constructive speech that is based in fact and reason. - Multi-Stakeholder Inclusivity - Inclusivity represents a multi-stakeholder system and an active effort shall be maintained to include a diverse set of views and users. @@ -220,12 +230,14 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. #Additional collateral + - [Images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) #Topics and key conversations we’d like to join + - Privacy - It’s a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. - Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. - Governance. What’s the best way to make decentralized decisions? @@ -238,6 +250,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj [Education resources repository] (https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) #FAQs + Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin? No. Decred is a separate cryptocurrency created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. Decred's founders looked at what was successful with Bitcoin and what they could add by baking in formalized governance from the start. The goal was to create a structure whereby anyone in the community with skin in the game could own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. @@ -262,6 +275,7 @@ What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? 10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/. #Unique Value Proposition + A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) **Governance**: While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. **Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. From b65cce63d728a79137fc4563a271881657bb56a1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:17:55 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 04/20] add space after markdown heading marks Markdown needs this to show headings properly. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 52 +++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 6dffe2d..61b301c 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -1,46 +1,46 @@ -#Target audience +# Target audience Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalists to Futurists. For high-level messaging purposes, these audiences can be grouped under three umbrellas: -##Technical audience +## Technical audience Developers, members of the Decred community, ecosystem partners (exchanges, wallets, applications etc.) and people who are familiar with the technical nuances of blockchain technology. -##Target Audience: Developers +## Target Audience: Developers From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart — but trusted — devs to come build on Decred. -##Investor audience +## Investor audience Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are interested in investing in cryptocurrency. -##Mainstream audience +## Mainstream audience Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. *Decred’s end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* -#Key messages +# Key messages [Foundational messaging] (https://github.com/decredcommunity/pr/blob/release/foundational-messaging.md) -##Origin Story +## Origin Story The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named ‘tacotime’ started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside ‘_ingsoc’, another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. _ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime’s MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. -##What is Decred? Elevator Pitch +## What is Decred? Elevator Pitch Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. - Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury make it secure, adaptable, and sustainable. - Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. - As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. -##Decentralization - The Decred Ethos +## Decentralization - The Decred Ethos The founding principle of Decred is decentralization. Even its name reflects this: Decred = Decentralized Credits. Decentralization is one of crypto’s core ideals, and something that Decred’s founders saw was missing from Bitcoin. While the original cryptocurrency talks about being decentralized, the reality is that power is centralized among a small group, namely developers and miners, who make the rules and decide how to steer the project. Decred was created to give the community (and every coin holder who opts in) a voice, more fairly distribute power, and champion individual sovereignty—the power to control one’s own destiny. -##A Superior Store of Value +## A Superior Store of Value According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it’s widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ The real question is: “Which coins will be the last coins standing?” The coi Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stocks or work-tokens) or unpegged liquid monetary instruments. DCR is the latter. Its end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money. -##Governance/Adaptability +## Governance/Adaptability Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules a group for people follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). @@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it’s the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all — not just a select few. -##Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is +## Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world’s largest social network. The founding members pledged $10 million in Libra tokens to be part of the network, and help fund the project’s initial development. @@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ For most technology projects—especially those that are not VC-funded—finding Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community’s dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. -##Privacy: A Balanced Approach +## Privacy: A Balanced Approach Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No one wants their barista to know how many coins remain in their wallet when they pick up their latte. Digital bearer assets come with certain risks, and nobody wants to become an easy target for thieves because their high net worth was publicly available. @@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ Privacy Messaging - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. -##Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) +## Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project’s consensus system. @@ -94,13 +94,13 @@ Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems, which each have different s In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. -##Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model +## Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Decred community welcomes input from all its members. When it comes to actually building the platform, the project is based on open source software. Code is written by contractors, who are free to jump in and contribute based on their level of interest and skill. If the community likes what it sees, it will pay an hourly rate. As an added bonus, contractors can work anywhere in the world as long as they have Internet access. The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. -##Tagline +## Tagline Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. @@ -134,11 +134,11 @@ Security Decred believes that security is the key to building a long-term store of value, which in turn is the key to creating the money of the future. -##Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). +## Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptability, and sustainability make it a superior long-term store of value. It is achieving this aim by building the world's first truly decentralized autonomous organization. -##Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) +## Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) Technical Audience Decred is designed to provide developers and community members with the most secure and adaptable cryptocurrency. It does so through on- and off-chain governance systems that leverage multi-stakeholder inclusivity to make collective decisions on consensus changes, block approval, budget, policy, and the development plan. Decred's self-sustaining, flexible contractor model allows anyone to join Decred at any time to work on the open-source projects they find most interesting and fulfilling - autonomously and voluntarily. Those who prove their value and merit to the project can become paid contractors. @@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ Sovereign Transparent Values-based -##Principles +## Principles - Free and Open-Source Software - All software developed as part of Decred shall be free and open source-software. - Free Speech and Consideration - Everyone has the right to communicate opinions and ideas without fear of censorship. Consideration shall be given to all constructive speech that is based in fact and reason. @@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ Values-based - Fixed Finite Supply - Issuance is finite and the total issuance shall not exceed 20,999,999.99800912 DCR, with a per-block subsidy that adjusts every 6,144 blocks (approximately 21.33 days) by reducing by a factor of 100/101. The genesis block subsidy starts at 31.19582664 DCR. - Universal Fungibility - Universal fungibility is fundamental to Decred being a store of value and attacks against it shall be actively monitored and countermeasures pursued as necessary. -#Credibility Bullet Points +# Credibility Bullet Points - Decred is a top cryptocurrency by market cap (36) - Decred is known as the project with the most bitcoin developers @@ -201,7 +201,7 @@ Values-based - More than 80 contributors from 35 countries spanning five continents - Charlie Lee, Jimmy Song, Willy Woo, Chris Burniske, Joel Monegro, Murad Mahmudov, and many more have made strong public statements of support -#Key stats +# Key stats - Decred launched on February 8, 2016 - Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split @@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ Values-based - Most of the other blockchain voter participation stats are 1-3%, sometimes less. - Privacy: 100% of Monero is private (default). Last I checked 3% of zcash is private. -##Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words +## Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto’s decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. @@ -229,14 +229,14 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. -#Additional collateral +# Additional collateral - [Images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) -#Topics and key conversations we’d like to join +# Topics and key conversations we’d like to join - Privacy - It’s a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. - Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. @@ -249,7 +249,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj [Education resources repository] (https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) -#FAQs +# FAQs Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin? No. Decred is a separate cryptocurrency created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. Decred's founders looked at what was successful with Bitcoin and what they could add by baking in formalized governance from the start. The goal was to create a structure whereby anyone in the community with skin in the game could own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. @@ -274,7 +274,7 @@ What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? 10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/. -#Unique Value Proposition +# Unique Value Proposition A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) **Governance**: While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. From 30b717b895054d0738b285e225667a2418aeeb87 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:20:10 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 05/20] remove trailing space They are not illegal Markdown syntax but they add clutter. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 120 ++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 60 insertions(+), 60 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 61b301c..dcb8299 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -16,8 +16,8 @@ Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are inter ## Mainstream audience -Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. - +Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. + *Decred’s end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* # Key messages @@ -34,71 +34,71 @@ _ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime’s Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. - Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury make it secure, adaptable, and sustainable. - Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. -- As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. +- As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. ## Decentralization - The Decred Ethos - + The founding principle of Decred is decentralization. Even its name reflects this: Decred = Decentralized Credits. Decentralization is one of crypto’s core ideals, and something that Decred’s founders saw was missing from Bitcoin. While the original cryptocurrency talks about being decentralized, the reality is that power is centralized among a small group, namely developers and miners, who make the rules and decide how to steer the project. Decred was created to give the community (and every coin holder who opts in) a voice, more fairly distribute power, and champion individual sovereignty—the power to control one’s own destiny. - + ## A Superior Store of Value - -According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it’s widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. - -The real question is: “Which coins will be the last coins standing?” The coins best designed and positioned to establish themselves as quality stores of value to last for decades. - + +According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it’s widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. + +The real question is: “Which coins will be the last coins standing?” The coins best designed and positioned to establish themselves as quality stores of value to last for decades. + Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stocks or work-tokens) or unpegged liquid monetary instruments. DCR is the latter. Its end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money. ## Governance/Adaptability - + Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules a group for people follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). - + If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project will work (consensus-level) and how it will evolve and spend its money (project-level). These important decisions can be either on-chain or off-chain—both present complex circumstances that shape how decisions are made and by whom. - + While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it’s the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all — not just a select few. ## Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is - + In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world’s largest social network. The founding members pledged $10 million in Libra tokens to be part of the network, and help fund the project’s initial development. - + For most technology projects—especially those that are not VC-funded—finding the funds to fuel development is extremely difficult. This is even harder in a yet-to-be proven space like blockchain and crypto. Decred stands apart as a project that is self-funded, meaning anyone who joins the community buys into a system that reinvests in its own development. - + Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community’s dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. - -## Privacy: A Balanced Approach + +## Privacy: A Balanced Approach Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No one wants their barista to know how many coins remain in their wallet when they pick up their latte. Digital bearer assets come with certain risks, and nobody wants to become an easy target for thieves because their high net worth was publicly available. - + The topic is complex and involves many tradeoffs. Blockchains are public ledgers, which means all transactions can be viewed by anyone. Many coins have taken various approaches to privacy, including zero knowledge proofs, ring signatures, Mimblewimble (no public addresses), and more. - + Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes “sound money” (which must be both fungible and immutable) to strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. - + Privacy Messaging - + 1. Decred’s privacy implementation is simple. - The math, concept, and code are all straightforward and well-understood. - Only several hundred lines of code are required, minimizing the opportunities for error. - + 2. Decred’s privacy implementation is creative. - The process leverages Decred’s unique governance system to create user anonymity. - The same concepts can add privacy off-chain on the Lightning Network. - + 3. Decred’s privacy implementation is adaptable. - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. - + ## Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) - + The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project’s consensus system. - + Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems, which each have different security properties. The Decred hybrid consensus system combines the best aspects of PoW with those of PoS, to create a network that is far more secure than other consensus systems. - + In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. - + ## Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model - + As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Decred community welcomes input from all its members. When it comes to actually building the platform, the project is based on open source software. Code is written by contractors, who are free to jump in and contribute based on their level of interest and skill. If the community likes what it sees, it will pay an hourly rate. As an added bonus, contractors can work anywhere in the world as long as they have Internet access. - -The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. + +The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. ## Tagline @@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ Adaptable. Decred's built-in governance systems facilitate formal methods of mak Sustainable. Decred's block reward system allows the Treasury to sustain itself over time - no outside funding necessary. This ensures the funding the project needs to realize the community's collective decisions. It also gives contributors the freedom to do the work that interests them most (and get paid). Vision Statement & Values (an aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term) Decred's vision is to build a self-directed, decentralized future ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. It will be built upon the pillars of sovereignty, fairness, transparency, inclusivity, privacy, and security. Everyone can vote on the rules and project-level decision making proportionately to their stake, yielding decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. - + Sovereignty Decred believes that individuals are capable of collectively making better decisions via direct and formal sovereignty in which they have control over their own actions - without being subjugated to a representative, which typically involves self-dealing and conflicts of interest. @@ -133,19 +133,19 @@ Decred believes in the fundamental right to privacy and in every person's freedo Security Decred believes that security is the key to building a long-term store of value, which in turn is the key to creating the money of the future. - + ## Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptability, and sustainability make it a superior long-term store of value. It is achieving this aim by building the world's first truly decentralized autonomous organization. - + ## Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) - + Technical Audience Decred is designed to provide developers and community members with the most secure and adaptable cryptocurrency. It does so through on- and off-chain governance systems that leverage multi-stakeholder inclusivity to make collective decisions on consensus changes, block approval, budget, policy, and the development plan. Decred's self-sustaining, flexible contractor model allows anyone to join Decred at any time to work on the open-source projects they find most interesting and fulfilling - autonomously and voluntarily. Those who prove their value and merit to the project can become paid contractors. - + Investor Audience Decred is a cryptocurrency designed to be a superior long-term store of value. The hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system provides an additional layer of network security, while stakeholders control budget and policy to make the currency more adaptable. With ten percent of each block reward going to the project Treasury, Decred is completely self-funded. This financial model reduces conflicts of interest and enables ongoing development powered by a unique contractor model that allows contributors to receive payment for work they find interesting. Together, these systems provide solid protection against value-loss events like chain splits and hard forks, giving Decred the resilience to stand the test of time. - + Mainstream Audience Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decentralized, fairer, and sovereign alternative to traditional money. In the current system, a centralized authority such as a bank or government holds the power. With Decred, the community members own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. The result is a secure and adaptable currency that is a superior store of value. Everyone is invested and actively involved in helping Decred succeed. @@ -188,37 +188,37 @@ Values-based - Fixed Finite Supply - Issuance is finite and the total issuance shall not exceed 20,999,999.99800912 DCR, with a per-block subsidy that adjusts every 6,144 blocks (approximately 21.33 days) by reducing by a factor of 100/101. The genesis block subsidy starts at 31.19582664 DCR. - Universal Fungibility - Universal fungibility is fundamental to Decred being a store of value and attacks against it shall be actively monitored and countermeasures pursued as necessary. -# Credibility Bullet Points +# Credibility Bullet Points - Decred is a top cryptocurrency by market cap (36) - Decred is known as the project with the most bitcoin developers -- Decred was created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. -- Company Zero, one of the original Decred developers, helped develop btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. -- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model -- Decred is the only non-btccore based project to implement Lightning Network +- Decred was created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. +- Company Zero, one of the original Decred developers, helped develop btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. +- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model +- Decred is the only non-btccore based project to implement Lightning Network - Decred produced open-source software for the public good, including tools for atomic swaps, zkc secure chat, tumblebit, DEX - Completed the first consensus change vote in the history of cryptocurrency - More than 80 contributors from 35 countries spanning five continents - Charlie Lee, Jimmy Song, Willy Woo, Chris Burniske, Joel Monegro, Murad Mahmudov, and many more have made strong public statements of support - + # Key stats - Decred launched on February 8, 2016 - Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split - A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) - Link to current stats: key stats exist here. -- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. Currently there’s around $21 million in the treasury. +- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. Currently there’s around $21 million in the treasury. - In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. - Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. - Politeia average voter turnout is 32%, average participation for consensus rule changes is greater than 50%. -- Decred Privacy has made shuffled 16% of the current supply of coins. -- Most of the other blockchain voter participation stats are 1-3%, sometimes less. +- Decred Privacy has made shuffled 16% of the current supply of coins. +- Most of the other blockchain voter participation stats are 1-3%, sometimes less. - Privacy: 100% of Monero is private (default). Last I checked 3% of zcash is private. ## Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words - + For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto’s decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. - + Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or passed proposals for) some significant industry firsts: - First-ever crypto atomic swap, between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) - Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred is one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). @@ -226,26 +226,26 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass - First on-chain Consensus change vote - First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. **There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. - Automate treasury. DASH did it first, and Decred’s won’t be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via attack. - + Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. - + # Additional collateral - [Images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org -- Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. +- Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) - -# Topics and key conversations we’d like to join + +# Topics and key conversations we’d like to join - Privacy - It’s a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. -- Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. -- Governance. What’s the best way to make decentralized decisions? +- Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. +- Governance. What’s the best way to make decentralized decisions? - DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations). - Individual sovereignty versus delegated, agency problems, as it relates to money and the wider political system. Technology exists such that why is it unreasonable to endow the public with sovereignty to make decisions, rather than delegate them to an elite class who profits from them and serves their own interests first. - What project maintains the OG principles of crypto? Decred continues to build the new financial system in a fairer way, and its continues to fund projects for the benefit of the entire crypto ecosystem (atomic swaps, tumblebit (privacy implementation), DEX) - Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it’s quite difficult. -- Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. +- Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. [Education resources repository] (https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) @@ -278,8 +278,8 @@ What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) **Governance**: While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. -**Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. -**Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Decred is/was the first cryptocurrency to do this. -**Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. +**Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. +**Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Decred is/was the first cryptocurrency to do this. +**Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. **Security**: In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. **Inclusivity**: Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. From 2d69a8b163d13d7fb7b2d4c7fd736f571185afda Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:34:09 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 06/20] fix multiple adjacent spaces While not an error, they add clutter. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index dcb8299..634e613 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ Privacy Messaging 3. Decred’s privacy implementation is adaptable. - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. - - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. + - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. ## Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) From 0b16d5462d3d20d91e4a00ac3001973de9624dee Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:31:33 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 07/20] fix paragraphs Markdown requires a blank line between paragraphs. Without a blank line, adjacent lines are joined together into a single paragraph. Also, blank lines before and after a bullet list are nice to have. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 17 +++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 634e613..c57481b 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -27,11 +27,13 @@ Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the c ## Origin Story The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named ‘tacotime’ started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside ‘_ingsoc’, another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. + _ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime’s MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. ## What is Decred? Elevator Pitch Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. + - Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury make it secure, adaptable, and sustainable. - Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. - As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. @@ -105,9 +107,13 @@ The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, whi Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. Secure. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. + Adaptable. Decred's built-in governance systems facilitate formal methods of making consensus changes and project-level decisions that avoid community-splitting forks. + Sustainable. Decred's block reward system allows the Treasury to sustain itself over time - no outside funding necessary. This ensures the funding the project needs to realize the community's collective decisions. It also gives contributors the freedom to do the work that interests them most (and get paid). + Vision Statement & Values (an aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term) + Decred's vision is to build a self-directed, decentralized future ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. It will be built upon the pillars of sovereignty, fairness, transparency, inclusivity, privacy, and security. Everyone can vote on the rules and project-level decision making proportionately to their stake, yielding decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. Sovereignty @@ -141,12 +147,15 @@ Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptab ## Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) Technical Audience + Decred is designed to provide developers and community members with the most secure and adaptable cryptocurrency. It does so through on- and off-chain governance systems that leverage multi-stakeholder inclusivity to make collective decisions on consensus changes, block approval, budget, policy, and the development plan. Decred's self-sustaining, flexible contractor model allows anyone to join Decred at any time to work on the open-source projects they find most interesting and fulfilling - autonomously and voluntarily. Those who prove their value and merit to the project can become paid contractors. Investor Audience + Decred is a cryptocurrency designed to be a superior long-term store of value. The hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system provides an additional layer of network security, while stakeholders control budget and policy to make the currency more adaptable. With ten percent of each block reward going to the project Treasury, Decred is completely self-funded. This financial model reduces conflicts of interest and enables ongoing development powered by a unique contractor model that allows contributors to receive payment for work they find interesting. Together, these systems provide solid protection against value-loss events like chain splits and hard forks, giving Decred the resilience to stand the test of time. Mainstream Audience + Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decentralized, fairer, and sovereign alternative to traditional money. In the current system, a centralized authority such as a bank or government holds the power. With Decred, the community members own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. The result is a secure and adaptable currency that is a superior store of value. Everyone is invested and actively involved in helping Decred succeed. Terms to describe Decred @@ -220,6 +229,7 @@ Values-based For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto’s decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or passed proposals for) some significant industry firsts: + - First-ever crypto atomic swap, between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) - Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred is one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). - Built the first-ever off-chain proposal system (Politeia) that allows for public discourse and voting on project-level decisions and how to spend the treasury. @@ -252,6 +262,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj # FAQs Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin? + No. Decred is a separate cryptocurrency created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. Decred's founders looked at what was successful with Bitcoin and what they could add by baking in formalized governance from the start. The goal was to create a structure whereby anyone in the community with skin in the game could own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. How is Decred different from Bitcoin? @@ -277,9 +288,15 @@ What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? # Unique Value Proposition A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) + **Governance**: While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. + **Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. + **Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Decred is/was the first cryptocurrency to do this. + **Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. + **Security**: In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. + **Inclusivity**: Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. From 1c5ff2dad1a792a536545c3a494b44c576ee6ec5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:40:51 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 08/20] fix indentation for bullet lists Unlike top-level bullet lists that are not indented, nested lists (sub-lists) need to be indented with a certain number of spaces. This number depends on the with of the bullet mark of the parent list. For example, if the parent list uses bullet marks of width 1 and a space, nested bullets must have 2 spaces at the beginning of the line: - parent item - child item If the parent list uses numbered list with items of width 2, child items must be indented with 3 spaces: 1. parent items - child item Finally, this fixes one instance of a bullet item not aligned with the rest. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 14 +++++++------- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index c57481b..e96627a 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -77,16 +77,16 @@ Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes “sound money” (which must Privacy Messaging 1. Decred’s privacy implementation is simple. - - The math, concept, and code are all straightforward and well-understood. - - Only several hundred lines of code are required, minimizing the opportunities for error. + - The math, concept, and code are all straightforward and well-understood. + - Only several hundred lines of code are required, minimizing the opportunities for error. 2. Decred’s privacy implementation is creative. - - The process leverages Decred’s unique governance system to create user anonymity. - - The same concepts can add privacy off-chain on the Lightning Network. + - The process leverages Decred’s unique governance system to create user anonymity. + - The same concepts can add privacy off-chain on the Lightning Network. 3. Decred’s privacy implementation is adaptable. - - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. - - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. + - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. + - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. ## Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) @@ -244,7 +244,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj - [Images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - - [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) +- [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) # Topics and key conversations we’d like to join From 7002e35401d2acdb233712701c77909477bc92d9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:47:46 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 09/20] fix links syntax The syntax of Markdown links does not have a space between the link text in square brackets and the URL in parens: [link](url) --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 10 +++++----- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index e96627a..fa6e3e7 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the c # Key messages -[Foundational messaging] (https://github.com/decredcommunity/pr/blob/release/foundational-messaging.md) +[Foundational messaging](https://github.com/decredcommunity/pr/blob/release/foundational-messaging.md) ## Origin Story @@ -241,10 +241,10 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj # Additional collateral -- [Images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) +- [Images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org -- Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images] (https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. -- [Keynotes] (https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) +- Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. +- [Keynotes](https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) # Topics and key conversations we’d like to join @@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj - Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it’s quite difficult. - Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. -[Education resources repository] (https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) +[Education resources repository](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) # FAQs From c1db7e47f372ca0e5e0f1fef27411e6863f16136 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:51:15 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 10/20] add a space after verbatim link While GitHub seems to render this properly, it is a good practice to add a space between the URL and anything that follows it, to avoid the next character being included in the URL and leading to a broken link. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index fa6e3e7..24a5656 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -283,7 +283,7 @@ Decred launched on February 8, 2016. All upgrade decisions since then have been What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? -10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/. +10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/ . # Unique Value Proposition From 1c6cf64e1322914c4490576075aabd4c6433ba68 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 18:59:32 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 11/20] remove non-ASCII characters MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Non-ASCII punctiation characters may look like better typography but unfortunately they are not standard across all software. Some users (like Mac users) may be able to seamlessly enter these characters, while others may not. This may lead to inconsistent formatting after different people make edits to the document. Examples of such characters: - right and left single quotation marks ‘’ - left and right double quotation marks “” - Em Dash — --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 58 +++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 29 insertions(+), 29 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 24a5656..33afc1e 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Developers, members of the Decred community, ecosystem partners (exchanges, wall ## Target Audience: Developers -From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart — but trusted — devs to come build on Decred. +From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart - but trusted - devs to come build on Decred. ## Investor audience @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are inter Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. -*Decred’s end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* +*Decred's end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* # Key messages @@ -26,9 +26,9 @@ Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the c ## Origin Story -The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named ‘tacotime’ started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside ‘_ingsoc’, another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. +The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named 'tacotime' started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside '_ingsoc', another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. -_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime’s MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. +_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime's MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. ## What is Decred? Elevator Pitch @@ -40,13 +40,13 @@ Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make i ## Decentralization - The Decred Ethos -The founding principle of Decred is decentralization. Even its name reflects this: Decred = Decentralized Credits. Decentralization is one of crypto’s core ideals, and something that Decred’s founders saw was missing from Bitcoin. While the original cryptocurrency talks about being decentralized, the reality is that power is centralized among a small group, namely developers and miners, who make the rules and decide how to steer the project. Decred was created to give the community (and every coin holder who opts in) a voice, more fairly distribute power, and champion individual sovereignty—the power to control one’s own destiny. +The founding principle of Decred is decentralization. Even its name reflects this: Decred = Decentralized Credits. Decentralization is one of crypto's core ideals, and something that Decred's founders saw was missing from Bitcoin. While the original cryptocurrency talks about being decentralized, the reality is that power is centralized among a small group, namely developers and miners, who make the rules and decide how to steer the project. Decred was created to give the community (and every coin holder who opts in) a voice, more fairly distribute power, and champion individual sovereignty - the power to control one's own destiny. ## A Superior Store of Value -According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it’s widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. +According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it's widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper's "60 Minutes" segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. -The real question is: “Which coins will be the last coins standing?” The coins best designed and positioned to establish themselves as quality stores of value to last for decades. +The real question is: "Which coins will be the last coins standing?" The coins best designed and positioned to establish themselves as quality stores of value to last for decades. Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stocks or work-tokens) or unpegged liquid monetary instruments. DCR is the latter. Its end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money. @@ -54,17 +54,17 @@ Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stock Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules a group for people follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). -If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project will work (consensus-level) and how it will evolve and spend its money (project-level). These important decisions can be either on-chain or off-chain—both present complex circumstances that shape how decisions are made and by whom. +If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project will work (consensus-level) and how it will evolve and spend its money (project-level). These important decisions can be either on-chain or off-chain - both present complex circumstances that shape how decisions are made and by whom. -While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it’s the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all — not just a select few. +While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it's the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. ## Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is -In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world’s largest social network. The founding members pledged $10 million in Libra tokens to be part of the network, and help fund the project’s initial development. +In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world's largest social network. The founding members pledged $10 million in Libra tokens to be part of the network, and help fund the project's initial development. -For most technology projects—especially those that are not VC-funded—finding the funds to fuel development is extremely difficult. This is even harder in a yet-to-be proven space like blockchain and crypto. Decred stands apart as a project that is self-funded, meaning anyone who joins the community buys into a system that reinvests in its own development. +For most technology projects - especially those that are not VC-funded - finding the funds to fuel development is extremely difficult. This is even harder in a yet-to-be proven space like blockchain and crypto. Decred stands apart as a project that is self-funded, meaning anyone who joins the community buys into a system that reinvests in its own development. -Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community’s dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. +Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community's dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. ## Privacy: A Balanced Approach @@ -72,29 +72,29 @@ Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No The topic is complex and involves many tradeoffs. Blockchains are public ledgers, which means all transactions can be viewed by anyone. Many coins have taken various approaches to privacy, including zero knowledge proofs, ring signatures, Mimblewimble (no public addresses), and more. -Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes “sound money” (which must be both fungible and immutable) to strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. +Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes "sound money" (which must be both fungible and immutable) to strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. Privacy Messaging -1. Decred’s privacy implementation is simple. +1. Decred's privacy implementation is simple. - The math, concept, and code are all straightforward and well-understood. - Only several hundred lines of code are required, minimizing the opportunities for error. -2. Decred’s privacy implementation is creative. - - The process leverages Decred’s unique governance system to create user anonymity. +2. Decred's privacy implementation is creative. + - The process leverages Decred's unique governance system to create user anonymity. - The same concepts can add privacy off-chain on the Lightning Network. -3. Decred’s privacy implementation is adaptable. +3. Decred's privacy implementation is adaptable. - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. ## Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) -The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project’s consensus system. +The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project's consensus system. Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems, which each have different security properties. The Decred hybrid consensus system combines the best aspects of PoW with those of PoS, to create a network that is far more secure than other consensus systems. -In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. ## Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model @@ -216,8 +216,8 @@ Values-based - Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split - A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) - Link to current stats: key stats exist here. -- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. Currently there’s around $21 million in the treasury. -- In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. Currently there's around $21 million in the treasury. +- In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. - Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. - Politeia average voter turnout is 32%, average participation for consensus rule changes is greater than 50%. - Decred Privacy has made shuffled 16% of the current supply of coins. @@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ Values-based ## Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words -For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto’s decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. +For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto's decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or passed proposals for) some significant industry firsts: @@ -235,9 +235,9 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass - Built the first-ever off-chain proposal system (Politeia) that allows for public discourse and voting on project-level decisions and how to spend the treasury. - First on-chain Consensus change vote - First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. **There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. -- Automate treasury. DASH did it first, and Decred’s won’t be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via attack. +- Automate treasury. DASH did it first, and Decred's won't be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via attack. -Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. +Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. # Additional collateral @@ -246,15 +246,15 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to “walking the talk” of crypto. Other proj - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes](https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) -# Topics and key conversations we’d like to join +# Topics and key conversations we'd like to join -- Privacy - It’s a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. +- Privacy - It's a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. - Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. -- Governance. What’s the best way to make decentralized decisions? +- Governance. What's the best way to make decentralized decisions? - DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations). - Individual sovereignty versus delegated, agency problems, as it relates to money and the wider political system. Technology exists such that why is it unreasonable to endow the public with sovereignty to make decisions, rather than delegate them to an elite class who profits from them and serves their own interests first. - What project maintains the OG principles of crypto? Decred continues to build the new financial system in a fairer way, and its continues to fund projects for the benefit of the entire crypto ecosystem (atomic swaps, tumblebit (privacy implementation), DEX) -- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it’s quite difficult. +- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it's quite difficult. - Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. [Education resources repository](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) @@ -297,6 +297,6 @@ A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) **Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. -**Security**: In Decred’s hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +**Security**: In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. **Inclusivity**: Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. From 1cd7e5e5d1af7b9d5119c26f801e06851c53dc42 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 19:05:00 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 12/20] escape underscore Underscore character (_) is used in Markdown syntax to encode italic text: _example_. When underscore is required in the text itself and is not intended to be used as formatting, it should be "escaped" by adding a backslash before it: \_example. While it may work just fine in most cases, sometimes the text after a non-escaped underscore may contain another non-escaped underscore and the whole text segment between them will be shown as italic while the underscores will be not shown. Example: first let's type a word with an _underscore not intended to mean italic text. Next let's have _another word. Now some software may render the whole segment between the two as italic. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 33afc1e..d413cd3 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -26,9 +26,9 @@ Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the c ## Origin Story -The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named 'tacotime' started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside '_ingsoc', another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. +The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named 'tacotime' started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside '\_ingsoc', another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. -_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime's MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. +\_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime's MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. ## What is Decred? Elevator Pitch From 774a1e6e297177570efe3dcfda1a5c4deb4f4abc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 19:11:15 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 13/20] use local link Within a repository Markdown documents can link to one another by just the file name without specifying the full URL. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index d413cd3..ed93c62 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the c # Key messages -[Foundational messaging](https://github.com/decredcommunity/pr/blob/release/foundational-messaging.md) +[Foundational messaging](foundational-messaging.md) ## Origin Story From 3973629b74649bc039f2f194f6be93b6bcb2d06e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 19:14:35 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 14/20] add main title, move all other titles one level down A proper document must have one main title that uses level 1 heading (with a single #). All other headings are actually sub-headings and must use headings of level 2 and higher. Headings of higher levels are actually nested deeper and shown in smaller fonts. Proper hierarchy of headings enables automatic generation of table of contents. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 54 ++++++++++++++++++++------------------ 1 file changed, 28 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index ed93c62..4539895 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -1,36 +1,38 @@ -# Target audience +# PR Materials March 2020 + +## Target audience Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalists to Futurists. For high-level messaging purposes, these audiences can be grouped under three umbrellas: -## Technical audience +### Technical audience Developers, members of the Decred community, ecosystem partners (exchanges, wallets, applications etc.) and people who are familiar with the technical nuances of blockchain technology. -## Target Audience: Developers +### Target Audience: Developers From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart - but trusted - devs to come build on Decred. -## Investor audience +### Investor audience Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are interested in investing in cryptocurrency. -## Mainstream audience +### Mainstream audience Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. *Decred's end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* -# Key messages +## Key messages [Foundational messaging](foundational-messaging.md) -## Origin Story +### Origin Story The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named 'tacotime' started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside '\_ingsoc', another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. \_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime's MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. -## What is Decred? Elevator Pitch +### What is Decred? Elevator Pitch Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. @@ -38,11 +40,11 @@ Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make i - Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. - As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. -## Decentralization - The Decred Ethos +### Decentralization - The Decred Ethos The founding principle of Decred is decentralization. Even its name reflects this: Decred = Decentralized Credits. Decentralization is one of crypto's core ideals, and something that Decred's founders saw was missing from Bitcoin. While the original cryptocurrency talks about being decentralized, the reality is that power is centralized among a small group, namely developers and miners, who make the rules and decide how to steer the project. Decred was created to give the community (and every coin holder who opts in) a voice, more fairly distribute power, and champion individual sovereignty - the power to control one's own destiny. -## A Superior Store of Value +### A Superior Store of Value According to monetary theory (and history has proven), money must be a quality store of value before it can become a medium of exchange or unit of account. While Bitcoin is the closest to being a store-of-value (i.e. digital gold), it still has a way to go before it's widely recognized as real money. Thanks to Anderson Cooper's "60 Minutes" segment, Bitcoin got its 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream media, but the masses are still in the dark about cryptocurrency. @@ -50,7 +52,7 @@ The real question is: "Which coins will be the last coins standing?" The coins b Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stocks or work-tokens) or unpegged liquid monetary instruments. DCR is the latter. Its end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money. -## Governance/Adaptability +### Governance/Adaptability Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules a group for people follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). @@ -58,7 +60,7 @@ If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it's the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. -## Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is +### Self-funding: Decred Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth is In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world's largest social network. The founding members pledged $10 million in Libra tokens to be part of the network, and help fund the project's initial development. @@ -66,7 +68,7 @@ For most technology projects - especially those that are not VC-funded - finding Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community's dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. -## Privacy: A Balanced Approach +### Privacy: A Balanced Approach Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No one wants their barista to know how many coins remain in their wallet when they pick up their latte. Digital bearer assets come with certain risks, and nobody wants to become an easy target for thieves because their high net worth was publicly available. @@ -88,7 +90,7 @@ Privacy Messaging - Much of the process occurs off-chain, avoiding chain bloat and making it scalable. - The process can be made post-quantum secure, ensuring privacy and fungibility for the long term. -## Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) +### Net Impact: How Consensus Controls Security (What Makes Hybrid PoW+PoS Better) The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project's consensus system. @@ -96,13 +98,13 @@ Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems, which each have different s In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. -## Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model +### Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Decred community welcomes input from all its members. When it comes to actually building the platform, the project is based on open source software. Code is written by contractors, who are free to jump in and contribute based on their level of interest and skill. If the community likes what it sees, it will pay an hourly rate. As an added bonus, contractors can work anywhere in the world as long as they have Internet access. The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. -## Tagline +### Tagline Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. @@ -140,11 +142,11 @@ Security Decred believes that security is the key to building a long-term store of value, which in turn is the key to creating the money of the future. -## Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). +### Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptability, and sustainability make it a superior long-term store of value. It is achieving this aim by building the world's first truly decentralized autonomous organization. -## Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) +### Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) Technical Audience @@ -188,7 +190,7 @@ Sovereign Transparent Values-based -## Principles +### Principles - Free and Open-Source Software - All software developed as part of Decred shall be free and open source-software. - Free Speech and Consideration - Everyone has the right to communicate opinions and ideas without fear of censorship. Consideration shall be given to all constructive speech that is based in fact and reason. @@ -197,7 +199,7 @@ Values-based - Fixed Finite Supply - Issuance is finite and the total issuance shall not exceed 20,999,999.99800912 DCR, with a per-block subsidy that adjusts every 6,144 blocks (approximately 21.33 days) by reducing by a factor of 100/101. The genesis block subsidy starts at 31.19582664 DCR. - Universal Fungibility - Universal fungibility is fundamental to Decred being a store of value and attacks against it shall be actively monitored and countermeasures pursued as necessary. -# Credibility Bullet Points +## Credibility Bullet Points - Decred is a top cryptocurrency by market cap (36) - Decred is known as the project with the most bitcoin developers @@ -210,7 +212,7 @@ Values-based - More than 80 contributors from 35 countries spanning five continents - Charlie Lee, Jimmy Song, Willy Woo, Chris Burniske, Joel Monegro, Murad Mahmudov, and many more have made strong public statements of support -# Key stats +## Key stats - Decred launched on February 8, 2016 - Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split @@ -224,7 +226,7 @@ Values-based - Most of the other blockchain voter participation stats are 1-3%, sometimes less. - Privacy: 100% of Monero is private (default). Last I checked 3% of zcash is private. -## Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words +### Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptocurrencies. Founded by early Bitcoin developers who wanted to stay true to crypto's decentralized ideals, Decred is a project that puts governance and individual sovereignty first. @@ -239,14 +241,14 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. -# Additional collateral +## Additional collateral - [Images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes](https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) -# Topics and key conversations we'd like to join +## Topics and key conversations we'd like to join - Privacy - It's a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. - Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. @@ -259,7 +261,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects [Education resources repository](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) -# FAQs +## FAQs Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin? @@ -285,7 +287,7 @@ What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? 10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/ . -# Unique Value Proposition +## Unique Value Proposition A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) From 5928773eecd3fd712313f6bb0378b89641936157 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2020 19:19:33 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 15/20] add metadata It is useful to have basic metadata like primary author and published date somewhere in the document. A nice standard for this is called "front matter" which originated in the Jekyll static site generation software. The format is very simple but is also very powerful by allowing to include arbitrary data structures. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 5 +++++ 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 4539895..40d3dcc 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -1,3 +1,8 @@ +--- +author: @l1ndseymmc +published_utc: FIXME when published +--- + # PR Materials March 2020 ## Target audience From 262c42646015a03c2829030452dfe3fabc246c4c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2020 20:17:41 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 16/20] tweak formatting --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 68 +++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 34 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 40d3dcc..a900e82 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalist Developers, members of the Decred community, ecosystem partners (exchanges, wallets, applications etc.) and people who are familiar with the technical nuances of blockchain technology. -### Target Audience: Developers +#### Target Audience: Developers From devs working at big tech and looking for a crypto side project to devs working on other projects, we want smart - but trusted - devs to come build on Decred. @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Individual and institutional investors who either already invest in or are inter Newbies to crypto and blockchain who are frustrated with the status quo of the current financial system, rentiers, third-party intermediaries, the surveillance economy, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain. This can include borderless, refugees, underbanked or unbanked, those fearful or experiencing inflation. -*Decred's end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money.* +_Decred's end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a superior SoV-candidate that will dramatically change the underlying power and global politics of money._ ## Key messages @@ -113,13 +113,13 @@ The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, whi Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. -Secure. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. +**Secure**. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. -Adaptable. Decred's built-in governance systems facilitate formal methods of making consensus changes and project-level decisions that avoid community-splitting forks. +**Adaptable**. Decred's built-in governance systems facilitate formal methods of making consensus changes and project-level decisions that avoid community-splitting forks. -Sustainable. Decred's block reward system allows the Treasury to sustain itself over time - no outside funding necessary. This ensures the funding the project needs to realize the community's collective decisions. It also gives contributors the freedom to do the work that interests them most (and get paid). +**Sustainable**. Decred's block reward system allows the Treasury to sustain itself over time - no outside funding necessary. This ensures the funding the project needs to realize the community's collective decisions. It also gives contributors the freedom to do the work that interests them most (and get paid). -Vision Statement & Values (an aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term) +### Vision Statement & Values (an aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term) Decred's vision is to build a self-directed, decentralized future ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. It will be built upon the pillars of sovereignty, fairness, transparency, inclusivity, privacy, and security. Everyone can vote on the rules and project-level decision making proportionately to their stake, yielding decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. @@ -167,33 +167,33 @@ Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decent Terms to describe Decred -Adaptable -Built to last -Cohesive -Community-directed -Decentralized -Enduring -Fair(er) -Minority fork-resistant -Future-focused -Inclusive -Iterative -Hybrid PoW+PoS -Long-term -OG (Original gangsters - founders involved since BTC Suite) -Pioneers -Rebellious -Reliable -Resilient -Revolutionary -Secure -Serious dev talent -Self-directed -Self-sustaining/Self-funding/Self-starters -Sound money -Sovereign -Transparent -Values-based +- Adaptable +- Built to last +- Cohesive +- Community-directed +- Decentralized +- Enduring +- Fair(er) +- Minority fork-resistant +- Future-focused +- Inclusive +- Iterative +- Hybrid PoW+PoS +- Long-term +- OG (Original gangsters - founders involved since BTC Suite) +- Pioneers +- Rebellious +- Reliable +- Resilient +- Revolutionary +- Secure +- Serious dev talent +- Self-directed +- Self-sustaining/Self-funding/Self-starters +- Sound money +- Sovereign +- Transparent +- Values-based ### Principles @@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass - Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred is one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). - Built the first-ever off-chain proposal system (Politeia) that allows for public discourse and voting on project-level decisions and how to spend the treasury. - First on-chain Consensus change vote -- First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. **There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. +- First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. \*\*There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. - Automate treasury. DASH did it first, and Decred's won't be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via attack. Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. From 6ece9f9387ed90b44711c0c9edee25598b57fb84 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2020 20:20:20 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 17/20] tweak links --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 8 +++++--- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index a900e82..039d325 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ _Decred's end game is to be a global currency: a solid hedge to Bitcoin and a su ## Key messages -[Foundational messaging](foundational-messaging.md) +See also [Foundational Messaging](foundational-messaging.md) and [Decred Constitution](https://docs.decred.org/governance/decred-constitution/). ### Origin Story @@ -197,6 +197,8 @@ Terms to describe Decred ### Principles +(copied from [Decred Constitution](https://docs.decred.org/governance/decred-constitution/)) + - Free and Open-Source Software - All software developed as part of Decred shall be free and open source-software. - Free Speech and Consideration - Everyone has the right to communicate opinions and ideas without fear of censorship. Consideration shall be given to all constructive speech that is based in fact and reason. - Multi-Stakeholder Inclusivity - Inclusivity represents a multi-stakeholder system and an active effort shall be maintained to include a diverse set of views and users. @@ -248,7 +250,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects ## Additional collateral -- [Images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) +- [Design assets](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) - Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes](https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) @@ -264,7 +266,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects - Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it's quite difficult. - Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. -[Education resources repository](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/reading-list/) +See also: [education resources](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/articles-and-media/). ## FAQs From 6982485ea638761f46dd459ac5fee5996350497c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2020 20:25:00 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 18/20] Text improvements --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 76 +++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 38 insertions(+), 38 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 039d325..baa0de0 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ published_utc: FIXME when published ## Target audience -Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalists to Futurists. For high-level messaging purposes, these audiences can be grouped under three umbrellas: +Decred aims to reach a wide array of discrete audiences, from Bitcoin maximalists to Futurists. For high-level messaging purposes, these audiences can be grouped under three umbrellas: technical, investors and mainstream. ### Technical audience @@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ See also [Foundational Messaging](foundational-messaging.md) and [Decred Constit ### Origin Story -The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named 'tacotime' started a thread and published the whitepaper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside '\_ingsoc', another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. +The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk user named 'tacotime' started a thread and published the paper for Memcoin2 (MC2). Tacotime worked alongside '\_ingsoc', another anonymous user. At the start of 2014 it appeared that tacotime also began work on another popular cryptocurrency: Monero. \_ingsoc approached Jake Yocom-Piatt, the CEO of Company Zero, with tacotime's MC2 concept. At the time Company Zero was primarily focused on the development of btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. Eventually the two teams joined forces to develop Decred. @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ The origin of Decred can be traced back to 2013, when an anonymous Bitcointalk u Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency with built-in governance to make it a superior long-term store of value. - Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism, transparent proposal and voting system, and continually funded treasury make it secure, adaptable, and sustainable. -- Every Decred community member with "skin in the game" - stakeholders, developers, and miners - can vote on the direction of the project. Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. +- Every Decred holder has "skin in the game", is a "stakeholder" and can vote on the direction of the project (regardless of being a miner, developer, or other contributor). Stakeholders collectively determine the policy, development plan, budget, and consensus rule changes. They also approve the miners' work - effectively aligning interests to ensure the best possible outcome for all. - As it moves towards becoming a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Decred is intentionally designed to fund all the parties involved in its governance. Each block reward compensates miners, stakeholders, and the Treasury, which pays contractors who work on Decred. ### Decentralization - The Decred Ethos @@ -59,9 +59,9 @@ Most coins are tokens pegged as cash-flow producing instruments (tokenized stock ### Governance/Adaptability -Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules a group for people follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). +Traditionally, governance implies electing a set of representatives that establish the policies or rules for a group of people to follow. This is rife with self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In the blockchain and crypto world, those principles have largely been copied over, and Decred believes that ideal governance is decentralized: the power structure should be dismantled, and the people should be in charge of their own destinies (self-sovereign). -If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decides how the project will work (consensus-level) and how it will evolve and spend its money (project-level). These important decisions can be either on-chain or off-chain - both present complex circumstances that shape how decisions are made and by whom. +If this is the case, then the people (crypto community) decide how the project will work (consensus-level) and how it will evolve and spend its money (project-level). These important decisions can be either on-chain or off-chain - both present complex circumstances that shape how decisions are made and by whom. While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. Even with the best intentions, power often ends up in the hands of a small, centralized group (in a Proof-of-Work system it's the miners with the most computing power). The result is that some core team still makes all meaningful decisions. In other systems, stake is delegated to a precious few, who might not be motivated by the same incentives as the rest of the holders. To combat this gravitational pull of power towards the center, Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ In 2019, Libra made headlines as the new cryptocurrency from Facebook, the world For most technology projects - especially those that are not VC-funded - finding the funds to fuel development is extremely difficult. This is even harder in a yet-to-be proven space like blockchain and crypto. Decred stands apart as a project that is self-funded, meaning anyone who joins the community buys into a system that reinvests in its own development. -Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community's dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. +Decred returns 10% of every block reward to the Treasury. The project was kickstarted by a team of developers that took compensation via a small premine, and included a system that continually funds itself. This mechanism provides additional runway in continuity while other projects die on the vine. Decred is committed to a self-funding Treasury, which is a testament to the community's dedication to building a store of value for generations to come. ### Privacy: A Balanced Approach @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No The topic is complex and involves many tradeoffs. Blockchains are public ledgers, which means all transactions can be viewed by anyone. Many coins have taken various approaches to privacy, including zero knowledge proofs, ring signatures, Mimblewimble (no public addresses), and more. -Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes "sound money" (which must be both fungible and immutable) to strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. +Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes "sound money" (which must be both fungible and immutable) over strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable at all times), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. Privacy Messaging @@ -99,9 +99,9 @@ Privacy Messaging The value of a cryptocurrency is largely determined by the security of the network. And what impacts security most? A project's consensus system. -Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems, which each have different security properties. The Decred hybrid consensus system combines the best aspects of PoW with those of PoS, to create a network that is far more secure than other consensus systems. +Cryptocurrencies use a variety of consensus systems with different security properties. The Decred hybrid consensus system combines the best aspects of PoW with those of PoS, to create a network that is far more secure than other consensus systems. -In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples to apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. ### Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model @@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, whi Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. -**Secure**. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. +**Secure**. Decred's unique hybrid PoW/PoS consensus mechanism is more than 20x more expensive to attack (given equal conditions) than PoW alone because it provides layered security. By effectively aligning incentives between miners and stakeholders, it provides checks and balances to ensure long-term stability. **Adaptable**. Decred's built-in governance systems facilitate formal methods of making consensus changes and project-level decisions that avoid community-splitting forks. @@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ Terms to describe Decred - Iterative - Hybrid PoW+PoS - Long-term -- OG (Original gangsters - founders involved since BTC Suite) +- OG (Original gangsters - founders involved since btcsuite) - Pioneers - Rebellious - Reliable @@ -209,13 +209,13 @@ Terms to describe Decred ## Credibility Bullet Points - Decred is a top cryptocurrency by market cap (36) -- Decred is known as the project with the most bitcoin developers -- Decred was created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. +- Decred is known as the project with the most Bitcoin developers +- Decred was created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project - Company Zero, one of the original Decred developers, helped develop btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. -- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model -- Decred is the only non-btccore based project to implement Lightning Network -- Decred produced open-source software for the public good, including tools for atomic swaps, zkc secure chat, tumblebit, DEX -- Completed the first consensus change vote in the history of cryptocurrency +- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model (given equal parameters like hashrate and market cap) +- Decred is the only non-Bitcoin Core based project to implement Lightning Network +- Decred developers produced open-source software for the public good, including tools for atomic swaps, zkc secure chat, TumbleBit, DEX +- Completed the first stakeholder-voted consensus change vote in the history of cryptocurrency - More than 80 contributors from 35 countries spanning five continents - Charlie Lee, Jimmy Song, Willy Woo, Chris Burniske, Joel Monegro, Murad Mahmudov, and many more have made strong public statements of support @@ -223,15 +223,15 @@ Terms to describe Decred - Decred launched on February 8, 2016 - Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split -- A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) -- Link to current stats: key stats exist here. -- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. Currently there's around $21 million in the treasury. -- In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +- A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) as of Mar 2020 +- Link to current stats: key stats exist here { TODO: which stats? insert link }. +- Ten percent of each block reward goes to the Treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. There's around $12 million in the Treasury as of Mar 2020, based on $18.6 per DCR. Current amount is shown [here](https://dcrdata.decred.org/address/Dcur2mcGjmENx4DhNqDctW5wJCVyT3Qeqkx). +- In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples to apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. - Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. - Politeia average voter turnout is 32%, average participation for consensus rule changes is greater than 50%. -- Decred Privacy has made shuffled 16% of the current supply of coins. -- Most of the other blockchain voter participation stats are 1-3%, sometimes less. -- Privacy: 100% of Monero is private (default). Last I checked 3% of zcash is private. +- Decred Privacy is mixing 20% of the circulating coin supply, as of Mar 2020. See [here](https://alpha.dcrdata.org/charts?chart=coin-supply&bin=false&axis=time&visibility=true%2Ctrue%2Ctrue) for current numbers. +- Most of the other blockchain projects have voter participation around 1-3%, sometimes less. +- Privacy: 100% of Monero is private (default). Last I checked 3% of Zcash is private. ### Decred Firsts: Actions Speak Louder than Words @@ -240,18 +240,18 @@ For the last 4+ years, Decred has been building one of the most advanced cryptoc Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or passed proposals for) some significant industry firsts: - First-ever crypto atomic swap, between Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC) -- Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred is one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). +- Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred has one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). - Built the first-ever off-chain proposal system (Politeia) that allows for public discourse and voting on project-level decisions and how to spend the treasury. -- First on-chain Consensus change vote +- First on-chain consensus rules change vote - First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. \*\*There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. -- Automate treasury. DASH did it first, and Decred's won't be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via attack. +- Automate Treasury. Dash did it first, and Decred's won't be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via an attack. Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. ## Additional collateral - [Design assets](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) -- Videos-we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org +- Videos: we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org { TODO: add link } - Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes](https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) @@ -259,11 +259,11 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects - Privacy - It's a universal human right that is being eroded by the surveillance economy. - Evolving workspace. Work on what you want, when you want, work autonomously for the blockchain. -- Governance. What's the best way to make decentralized decisions? +- Governance. What's the best way to make decisions in a decentralized fashion? - DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations). - Individual sovereignty versus delegated, agency problems, as it relates to money and the wider political system. Technology exists such that why is it unreasonable to endow the public with sovereignty to make decisions, rather than delegate them to an elite class who profits from them and serves their own interests first. -- What project maintains the OG principles of crypto? Decred continues to build the new financial system in a fairer way, and its continues to fund projects for the benefit of the entire crypto ecosystem (atomic swaps, tumblebit (privacy implementation), DEX) -- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-btccore project to implement LN because it's quite difficult. +- What project maintains the OG principles of crypto? Decred continues to build the new financial system in a fairer way, and it continues to fund projects for the benefit of the entire crypto ecosystem (atomic swaps, TumbleBit (privacy implementation), DEX) +- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-Bitcoin Core project to implement LN because it's quite difficult. - Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. See also: [education resources](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/articles-and-media/). @@ -278,13 +278,13 @@ How is Decred different from Bitcoin? Decred is distinct from Bitcoin in three key ways: -1. Secure: Decred's is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin thanks to its hybrid PoW/PoS model that places checks and balances between miners and stakeholders. -2. Adaptable: Decred has built-in formalized governance that allows it to make changes to its consensus rules while avoiding hard forks. +1. Secure: Decred's is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin (given equal conditions like hashrate and market cap) thanks to its hybrid PoW/PoS model that places checks and balances between miners and stakeholders. +2. Adaptable: Decred has built-in formalized governance that allows it to make changes to its consensus rules while avoiding sustained chain splits (and creation of new currencies). 3. Sustainable: Both consistent funding through block rewards and the skin in the game model of stakeholder voting make Decred sustainable in the long-term. Where other projects are discussing developer funding, Decred is not only paying developers around the world - it's also autonomously selecting community leads, its PR firm, and building a decentralized exchange ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. Why haven't I ever heard of Decred? -Decred has been quietly building over the past 3.5 years. This has allowed the community to focus on creating a superior long-term store of value that will stand on its own - marketing can't substitute for a great product. +Decred has been quietly building during its first 3 years. This has allowed the community to focus on creating a superior long-term store of value that will stand on its own - marketing can't substitute for a great product. When was Decred first launched? @@ -292,20 +292,20 @@ Decred launched on February 8, 2016. All upgrade decisions since then have been What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? -10% of every block reward goes to the treasury. The current balance is more than 600K dcr. https://dcrdata.decred.org/ . +10% of every block reward goes to the Treasury. As of Mar 2020, the balance is more than 640K DCR. For current balance see the [Treasury address](https://dcrdata.decred.org/address/Dcur2mcGjmENx4DhNqDctW5wJCVyT3Qeqkx). ## Unique Value Proposition -A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) +A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35, as of Mar 2020). **Governance**: While most projects agree on the principle of decentralization, few have set up working governance models that truly enable it. -**Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a select group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. +**Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a small group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. **Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Decred is/was the first cryptocurrency to do this. **Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. -**Security**: In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples for apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. +**Security**: In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples to apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. **Inclusivity**: Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. From 00cc4346a57b8b06a9eb73829a0c91723c268a29 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2020 20:49:10 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 19/20] sync formatting from foundational-messaging Increase visual clarity and minimize diff with foundational-messaging. --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 44 ++++++++++++++++++++++---------------- 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index baa0de0..95e3a1a 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ The topic is complex and involves many tradeoffs. Blockchains are public ledgers Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes "sound money" (which must be both fungible and immutable) over strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable at all times), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. -Privacy Messaging +#### Privacy Messaging 1. Decred's privacy implementation is simple. - The math, concept, and code are all straightforward and well-understood. @@ -119,53 +119,59 @@ Decred: Secure. Adaptable. Sustainable. **Sustainable**. Decred's block reward system allows the Treasury to sustain itself over time - no outside funding necessary. This ensures the funding the project needs to realize the community's collective decisions. It also gives contributors the freedom to do the work that interests them most (and get paid). -### Vision Statement & Values (an aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term) +### Vision Statement & Values + +_An aspirational description of what Decred aims to achieve in the long-term._ Decred's vision is to build a self-directed, decentralized future ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. It will be built upon the pillars of sovereignty, fairness, transparency, inclusivity, privacy, and security. Everyone can vote on the rules and project-level decision making proportionately to their stake, yielding decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. -Sovereignty +**Sovereignty** Decred believes that individuals are capable of collectively making better decisions via direct and formal sovereignty in which they have control over their own actions - without being subjugated to a representative, which typically involves self-dealing and conflicts of interest. -Fairness +**Fairness** Decred believes that the time has come to create a fairer system that benefits all participants equally - replacing the uneven playing field created by legacy financial systems. -Transparency +**Transparency** Decred believes that access to information is the cornerstone of informed, sustainable decision-making, and every stakeholder has a right to full transparency. -Inclusivity +**Inclusivity** Decred believes that no thoughts and ideas should be excluded - all stakeholder voices deserve to be heard and considered in the decision-making process. -Privacy +**Privacy** Decred believes in the fundamental right to privacy and in every person's freedom to choose the amount of privacy that's right for them. -Security +**Security** Decred believes that security is the key to building a long-term store of value, which in turn is the key to creating the money of the future. -### Mission Statement (a short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term). +### Mission Statement + +_A short description of what Decred aims to achieve in the short- and medium-term._ Decred aims to build a community-directed cryptocurrency whose security, adaptability, and sustainability make it a superior long-term store of value. It is achieving this aim by building the world's first truly decentralized autonomous organization. -### Positioning Statements (how Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience) +### Positioning Statements + +_How Decred is distinct from its competitors for each audience_ -Technical Audience +**Technical Audience** Decred is designed to provide developers and community members with the most secure and adaptable cryptocurrency. It does so through on- and off-chain governance systems that leverage multi-stakeholder inclusivity to make collective decisions on consensus changes, block approval, budget, policy, and the development plan. Decred's self-sustaining, flexible contractor model allows anyone to join Decred at any time to work on the open-source projects they find most interesting and fulfilling - autonomously and voluntarily. Those who prove their value and merit to the project can become paid contractors. -Investor Audience +**Investor Audience** Decred is a cryptocurrency designed to be a superior long-term store of value. The hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system provides an additional layer of network security, while stakeholders control budget and policy to make the currency more adaptable. With ten percent of each block reward going to the project Treasury, Decred is completely self-funded. This financial model reduces conflicts of interest and enables ongoing development powered by a unique contractor model that allows contributors to receive payment for work they find interesting. Together, these systems provide solid protection against value-loss events like chain splits and hard forks, giving Decred the resilience to stand the test of time. -Mainstream Audience +**Mainstream Audience** Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decentralized, fairer, and sovereign alternative to traditional money. In the current system, a centralized authority such as a bank or government holds the power. With Decred, the community members own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. The result is a secure and adaptable currency that is a superior store of value. Everyone is invested and actively involved in helping Decred succeed. -Terms to describe Decred +### Terms to describe Decred - Adaptable - Built to last @@ -270,11 +276,11 @@ See also: [education resources](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/articles ## FAQs -Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin? +**Is Decred a fork of Bitcoin?** No. Decred is a separate cryptocurrency created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project. Decred's founders looked at what was successful with Bitcoin and what they could add by baking in formalized governance from the start. The goal was to create a structure whereby anyone in the community with skin in the game could own and operate the system, make the rules, and determine the direction of the project. -How is Decred different from Bitcoin? +**How is Decred different from Bitcoin?** Decred is distinct from Bitcoin in three key ways: @@ -282,15 +288,15 @@ Decred is distinct from Bitcoin in three key ways: 2. Adaptable: Decred has built-in formalized governance that allows it to make changes to its consensus rules while avoiding sustained chain splits (and creation of new currencies). 3. Sustainable: Both consistent funding through block rewards and the skin in the game model of stakeholder voting make Decred sustainable in the long-term. Where other projects are discussing developer funding, Decred is not only paying developers around the world - it's also autonomously selecting community leads, its PR firm, and building a decentralized exchange ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. -Why haven't I ever heard of Decred? +**Why haven't I ever heard of Decred?** Decred has been quietly building during its first 3 years. This has allowed the community to focus on creating a superior long-term store of value that will stand on its own - marketing can't substitute for a great product. -When was Decred first launched? +**When was Decred first launched?** Decred launched on February 8, 2016. All upgrade decisions since then have been approved by a super majority of the stakeholders so that no hard forks have ever been necessary. -What amount of money is in Decred's treasury? +**What amount of money is in Decred's treasury?** 10% of every block reward goes to the Treasury. As of Mar 2020, the balance is more than 640K DCR. For current balance see the [Treasury address](https://dcrdata.decred.org/address/Dcur2mcGjmENx4DhNqDctW5wJCVyT3Qeqkx). From 51c840396182e1a7b93504454cf0abf1138534a3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xaur <24484727+xaur@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2020 21:48:53 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 20/20] make some changes per the review --- pr-materials-march-2020.md | 34 ++++++++++++++++------------------ 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-) diff --git a/pr-materials-march-2020.md b/pr-materials-march-2020.md index 95e3a1a..4c6cec0 100644 --- a/pr-materials-march-2020.md +++ b/pr-materials-march-2020.md @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ Privacy is a foundational belief of many early adopters of cryptocurrencies. No The topic is complex and involves many tradeoffs. Blockchains are public ledgers, which means all transactions can be viewed by anyone. Many coins have taken various approaches to privacy, including zero knowledge proofs, ring signatures, Mimblewimble (no public addresses), and more. -Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes "sound money" (which must be both fungible and immutable) over strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable at all times), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. +Decred takes a pragmatic approach that prioritizes "sound money" (which must be both fungible and immutable) over strict privacy. Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation (the blockchain must be auditable at all times), which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures. #### Privacy Messaging @@ -105,9 +105,9 @@ In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination ### Crypto Gig Economy: Flexible Contractor Model -As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Decred community welcomes input from all its members. When it comes to actually building the platform, the project is based on open source software. Code is written by contractors, who are free to jump in and contribute based on their level of interest and skill. If the community likes what it sees, it will pay an hourly rate. As an added bonus, contractors can work anywhere in the world as long as they have Internet access. +As a decentralized project that focuses on transparency and inclusivity, the Decred community welcomes input from all its members. When it comes to actually building the platform, the project is based on open source software. Code is written by people who are free to jump in and contribute based on their level of interest and skill. If the community likes what it sees, it will pay an hourly rate. As an added bonus, contributors can work anywhere in the world as long as they have Internet access. -The amount of time contractors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contractors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. +The amount of time contributors devote to the project is entirely up to them, which makes for a flexible part-time job. Many Decred contributors have other day jobs, and work on Decred as a passion project. Others have found that their passion has turned into a full-time job. This flexible contractor model attracts those developers who are inspired by the Decred ethos and are truly invested in the vision. ### Tagline @@ -188,7 +188,6 @@ Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decent - Long-term - OG (Original gangsters - founders involved since btcsuite) - Pioneers -- Rebellious - Reliable - Resilient - Revolutionary @@ -215,11 +214,10 @@ Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decent ## Credibility Bullet Points - Decred is a top cryptocurrency by market cap (36) -- Decred is known as the project with the most Bitcoin developers - Decred was created by former Bitcoin developers who faced issues with the way Bitcoin was governed and decided to pursue their own original project - Company Zero, one of the original Decred developers, helped develop btcsuite, an alternative full node Bitcoin implementation written in Go. Their code is highly-regarded in the crypto community and used by many leading projects such as Ethereum, BitGo, Factom, OpenBazaar and the Lightning Network. -- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model (given equal parameters like hashrate and market cap) -- Decred is the only non-Bitcoin Core based project to implement Lightning Network +- Decred is a fork-resistant store of value, which would be ~20x more expensive to attack than Bitcoin due to its hybrid PoW/PoS model, given equal parameters like hashrate and market cap +- Decred is one of the few projects with the capacity to deploy Lightning Network - Decred developers produced open-source software for the public good, including tools for atomic swaps, zkc secure chat, TumbleBit, DEX - Completed the first stakeholder-voted consensus change vote in the history of cryptocurrency - More than 80 contributors from 35 countries spanning five continents @@ -229,11 +227,11 @@ Decred is a community-directed cryptocurrency designed to deliver a truly decent - Decred launched on February 8, 2016 - Decred has been hard forked multiple times, but always at the direction of the community, which has never been split -- A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35) as of Mar 2020 -- Link to current stats: key stats exist here { TODO: which stats? insert link }. +- Market cap rank between 35-50 with cap value $100-200 million throughout 2019-2020 (note: [CMC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/decred/) incorrectly lowers our market cap). +- Link to current stats: key stats exist here https://dcrdata.decred.org/ - Ten percent of each block reward goes to the Treasury, which means that Decred is completely self-funded. There's around $12 million in the Treasury as of Mar 2020, based on $18.6 per DCR. Current amount is shown [here](https://dcrdata.decred.org/address/Dcur2mcGjmENx4DhNqDctW5wJCVyT3Qeqkx). - In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples to apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network. -- Decred is a completely decentralized organization that operates remotely by 80+ people from 35 different countries across five continents. +- Decred's goal is to become a completely decentralized organization. It already operates remotely with 80+ people from 35 different countries across 5 continents. - Politeia average voter turnout is 32%, average participation for consensus rule changes is greater than 50%. - Decred Privacy is mixing 20% of the circulating coin supply, as of Mar 2020. See [here](https://alpha.dcrdata.org/charts?chart=coin-supply&bin=false&axis=time&visibility=true%2Ctrue%2Ctrue) for current numbers. - Most of the other blockchain projects have voter participation around 1-3%, sometimes less. @@ -249,16 +247,16 @@ Beyond espousing decentralized ideals, Decred has self-funded and built (or pass - Decred developers created btcsuite, the first alternative full-node Bitcoin implementation whose code served as the basis of Lightning Network. Decred has one of the first LN implementations (along with BTC and LTC). - Built the first-ever off-chain proposal system (Politeia) that allows for public discourse and voting on project-level decisions and how to spend the treasury. - First on-chain consensus rules change vote -- First project to build a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. \*\*There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. -- Automate Treasury. Dash did it first, and Decred's won't be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via an attack. +- First project to fund the development of a truly decentralized exchange (DEX), which was passed via Politeia with technical specs announced. \*\*There are other DEXs, but this is the first of its kind. +- Decentralize Treasury control. Dash did it first, but Decred's won't be fully automated due to specific attack vectors. There will be a summary draft of payouts that will be voted on by the stakeholders. If they were fully automated, there could be a threat of someone draining the treasury via an attack. Full decentralization is the ultimate goal, but it will be done in careful steps. Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects claim to be the first or talk about innovations, but Decred is actually building/implementing big leaps forward. ## Additional collateral - [Design assets](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) -- Videos: we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) that will be released any time now. decred.org { TODO: add link } -- Infographics: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. +- Videos: we have a new explainer video (less than 2 minutes) at https://decred.org/ +- Visual assets: The design team regularly generates [images](https://github.com/decred/dcrdesign/releases) to be used for each software release or integration. - [Keynotes](https://www.notion.so/Decred-Keynotes-5c3fdfb0a73841c0a394efe002003409) ## Topics and key conversations we'd like to join @@ -269,7 +267,7 @@ Decred is a leader when it comes to "walking the talk" of crypto. Other projects - DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations). - Individual sovereignty versus delegated, agency problems, as it relates to money and the wider political system. Technology exists such that why is it unreasonable to endow the public with sovereignty to make decisions, rather than delegate them to an elite class who profits from them and serves their own interests first. - What project maintains the OG principles of crypto? Decred continues to build the new financial system in a fairer way, and it continues to fund projects for the benefit of the entire crypto ecosystem (atomic swaps, TumbleBit (privacy implementation), DEX) -- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is the only non-Bitcoin Core project to implement LN because it's quite difficult. +- Lightning Network (layer 2 scalability). Decred is one of the few projects with the capacity to deploy Lightning Network because it's quite difficult. - Diversity and inclusion - working with people internationally based on the quality of their work as opposed to gender, race etc. See also: [education resources](https://docs.decred.org/getting-started/articles-and-media/). @@ -286,7 +284,7 @@ Decred is distinct from Bitcoin in three key ways: 1. Secure: Decred's is a fork-resistant store of value, proven to be twenty times more expensive to attack than Bitcoin (given equal conditions like hashrate and market cap) thanks to its hybrid PoW/PoS model that places checks and balances between miners and stakeholders. 2. Adaptable: Decred has built-in formalized governance that allows it to make changes to its consensus rules while avoiding sustained chain splits (and creation of new currencies). -3. Sustainable: Both consistent funding through block rewards and the skin in the game model of stakeholder voting make Decred sustainable in the long-term. Where other projects are discussing developer funding, Decred is not only paying developers around the world - it's also autonomously selecting community leads, its PR firm, and building a decentralized exchange ruled by the collective intelligence of the community. +3. Sustainable: Both consistent funding through block rewards and the skin in the game model of stakeholder voting make Decred sustainable in the long-term. Where other projects are discussing developer funding, Decred is not only paying developers around the world - it's also autonomously selecting community leads, its PR firm, and building a decentralized exchange. **Why haven't I ever heard of Decred?** @@ -308,9 +306,9 @@ A top cryptocurrency by market cap - $212.49M (top 35, as of Mar 2020). **Sovereignty**: Decred built a unique governance system that is ruled by the collective intelligence of the community, rather than a small group. The result is community-based decisions and policies in the best interest of all - not just a select few. -**Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Decred is/was the first cryptocurrency to do this. +**Sustainability**: Self-funding treasury - 10% of every block is awarded to the treasury. Very few projects have this. -**Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures and attracted dark markets. +**Privacy**: Decred aims to deliver incremental privacy without risking stealth inflation, which is unlike other privacy coins that have taken more extreme measures. **Security**: In Decred's hybrid PoW+PoS consensus system, a 51% attack requires a combination of hash power and tickets in the staking system. Apples to apples, an attack on the Decred network would cost 20x more than one on the Bitcoin network.