Cypherpunk Times

Decred and the State of the market is brought to you by Exitus and PhoenixGreen.

In this episode, we’ll have a look back at what’s happened in 2023, the events that are bringing this year to a close and all the exciting developments in progress for 2024.

This year has been dominated by US and European regulators aiming to close down on and off ramps to the crypto world “Choke Point 2.0”. Interestingly, other areas of the world like South America seem to be ramping up their adoption and embracing this new technology. Will this leave citizens of western countries disadvantaged going forward?

Bittrex is closing down “Monday 4th December 2023”. Shortly after announcing this news, they disabled DCR withdrawals on the platform, sending the price on the platform below $5, creating a possible arbitrage opportunity for any trader brave enough.

This leaves Decred with just two main markets, Binance and DCRDEX. With Bitcoin BTC and Tether USDT being the main pairs. DCRDEX could be perfectly positioned based on the version 1 release, just weeks away. The New Polygon USDC pairs to rival USDT. And more privacy with the release of Firo pairs.

What are your thoughts on Polygon and the USDC pairs coming to DCRDEX?

Bitcoin has been a roller coster this year. It’s impressive that the price has gone up so high but using the chain has become a ridiculously bad experience which has also impacted platforms like DCRDEX that conduct permissionless on-chain transactions.

The Vanguard and the video proposals are just about to come up for renewal. What have been the positives, negatives and learning experiences for these proposals? What are we aiming to achieve in 2024?

• New video content?
• New people to deliver content?
• Ads on Twitter?
• In-video adds on tech content creator YT channels
• What about the possibility of YouTube ads?
• Hackathons?
• Trading contests on DCRDEX?
• Explore partnerships and integrations?
• Rare sats on DCRDEX?

Live stream agenda:

The process of building a Decred block is actually pretty interesting and is the area that gives the project its security and efficiency.

It’s important to note that Decred’s block construction is based on a hybrid mechanism of proof of work and proof of stake. A lot of the earlier blockchains rely on one mechanism or the other, but Decred takes advantage of the best bits of both of these mechanisms.

For example, Proof of stake is used for its coin holder voting and verification properties and proof of work is used for its block production properties. Both of which combine to amplify the security and cost of attacking the platform.

For more, visit cypherpunktimes.com

Crypto as an industry is over 14 years old. And as we know, one of its original premises was to be money. One aspect of being decentralised money is being able to earn it, preferably in a permissionless way.

This is an area that Decred excels in, and is one of the few cryptocurrencies to build a DAO structure as part of its core design. Decred is a layer 1 “Decentralised Autonomous Organisation”, that facilitates a “protocol to peer” work paradigm.

• Decentralised Treasury
• Consensus Upgrade Voting
• Proposal Voting
• Treasury Spending Voting

Learn more at decred.org

The scaling debate is an interesting topic that has got extremely heated over the last few months. With advocates for both sides putting forward valid points. Personally, I don’t think it’s a binary decision, “one way is not always better than the other”. In each example, there are trade-offs, and depending on your position, you will likely decide in favour of one or the other.

In this podcast, we’ll have a look at some of these arguments and identify why Decred has taken its scaling route.

Join us @ cypherpunktimes.com

I’ve heard debate about Decred not offering anything new to the cryptocurrency space or not having a specific utility. Although to the outsider this may seem like the case, in fact, Decred offers so much utility that it’s often hard to describe in a punchy one-liner.

So let’s have a look at some of the utility that Decred has to offer.

This is an interesting question which is currently evolving. But the short answer is Bitcoin BTC. At the time of writing, pretty much every alternative coin has a BTC pair. This has typically been the coin that generates the highest liquidity in and out of a project like Decred.

But let's investigate some of our options and future prospects.

Join us @ cypherpunktimes.com

Crypto is over 14 years old and has seen its fair share of game theory and manipulation play out. Throughout this process, a few obvious centralising entities have fully established, organised and been allowed to thrive. Although early development could never have preemptively solved for each of these entities, it remains important to course correct at every opportunity.

Let’s dive into three of these centralising entities and the efforts Decred has gone to, not only to remove these middlemen, but also to not insert another one in their place.

cypherpunktimes.com

Cryptocurrencies and digital internet money are extremely young and, as such, the ability to adapt to the changing environment will be critical. Principles, ideals, and theory that were once valid and seen as the immovable cornerstones of the space have mostly all been proven fragile when put to the test.

The idea that a piece of software or hardware will be as strong in the long term as it is today is a flagrant lie. Without the ability to formally change when needed, it will lead projects to be manipulated and exploited at the will of those who seek to game the system and profit.

Decred and the State of the market is brought to you by Exitus, Tivra and PhoenixGreen.

In this episode, we’ll be talking about the change to CPU mining and the initial mining difficulty which had to be overcome to find the first block, after the consensus change. We’ll also look at the current active proposals on Politeia and other participation opportunities.

Simple swaps are a great way of buying or selling small amounts of crypto, as they are super flexible, mobile-friendly, crazy simple to use and have a large array of coins that can be swapped between. The main downside with simple swaps is their custodial nature, meaning that a middleman takes control of your funds to complete the exchange between coins. You should be aware of this risk, as it could lead to loss of funds.

Simple Swaps are not the same as AtomicSwaps. AtomicSwaps, as in the case of DCRDEX, are completed fully peer to peer and do not require any middlemen or third-party services.

Find out more about DCRDEX at dex.decred.org

To kick off our commonly asked questions series, let’s start with the barrier to entry for every new person to crypto and those with minimal familiarity. How do I buy my first Decred?

This is difficult to answer because ideally, you’ll be using the DCRDEX P2P exchange and holding your coins in its self-custody wallets. But for new users, there are probably too many steps, which can be very daunting.

From recent surveys, it would also appear, the majority of new crypto users prefer to buy crypto using mobile exchanges and wallets. For this reason, if I was new to the space and wanted to buy my first Decred, I would likely use the Binance app. Then self-custody the coins in a Decred wallet. As a rule of thumb, mobile wallets are good for small holdings and the Decrediton desktop wallet is best for large, long-term holdings.

Decred and the State of the market is brought to you by Exitus and PhoenixGreen with special guest Dave Collins.

In this episode, we’ll be talking about what to expect from the upcoming consensus change and what it means for the project going forward.

Behind the scenes there’s been a conscious effort to bring Decred to the wider crypto space. One area that is likely to be a barrier to entry is its availability on popular mobile wallets and apps. In this live stream we’ll be talking to Vik Sharma @vikrantnyc and Justin Ehrenhofer @JEhrenhofer about Cake Wallet and a possible integration for Decred. Cake wallet is considered an excellent mobile wallet that has an extensive user base and many advanced and interesting features.

Anxiety or optimism? The future of cryptocurrency is stirring up mixed feelings these days. In this episode we talk about the direction of the space and wether we are purely speculative or if we can get back to the roots of sound money.

Conversation Topics:

* Where does crypto go from here?

* Ionia's gift card service DashDirect / CakePay is shutting down.

* Optimism for cryptocurrencies building services and utility including Litecoin, Monero, ZCash, Dash, Dogecoin and Decred

* We are all experts! Initiatives for onboarding new users

* Peer to peer services including Bitrefil, DCRDEX

We are stronger together. Can blockchain projects overcome their differences and work together for the greater good?

In this show, we’ll be hosting our first multi-chain discussion and looking at the potential for projects to work together and benefit from each other's innovation, research, technology and communities. 

The State of the market is brought to you by Exitus and Phoenixgreen and aims to look at current social, economic, and crypto news and how it relates to Decred.

In this show we’ll be joined by:

• Tivra @WasPraxis - From the Decred community
• johnnylaw.dgb @JohnnyLaw2021 - From the Digibyte community
• Jason @ZecHub - From the ZCash community
• Łitecoin UndergrounĐ @LTCUnderground - From the Litecoin community

Crypto and the ideals of the space are under attack in a variety of ways. It’s for this reason we’ve started several initiatives to bring communities together and begin a coordinated effort to grow a positive narrative.

Twitter Space hosted by Tivra @WasPraxis to discuss seven years of Decred. Where it's been and where it's headed. 

Twitter Space topics include:

• How members got into Decred
• What made Decred stand out
• Why no one thought the project would happen
• Company 0 "Bad for Bitcoin so let's build something else"
• Decred Air Drop and people who couldn't prove they weren't robots
• MC2 white paper ahead of it's time
• ASIC resistance and miner centralisation
• Decred is building tools for the future
• BTCSuite being used as the preferred node for Lightning Labs
• and so much more ...

For those not in the loop, Decred is building a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) around the premise of sound money. Decred has a fix maximum supply of 21 million, is governed by its coin holders and is self funded from its decentralised treasury.

Through its decentralised, open sources and fee-less exchange (DCRDEX), Decred aims to be not only a project for peer to peer transactions but a platform for peer to peer exchange. An interoperability factor unparalleled by any other project.

Find out more about Decred: https://decred.org

#DEX #DAO #BTC #DCR #inflation

Join hosts Tivra @WasPraxis and Kozel @artikozel for Decred Twitter space - https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKddnRQZvKW?s=20

Guests include:

• C12 - @c12hz
• @DecredSociety
• @Knighty_007

In this episode, we continue our discussion on the possibilities of Bison Relay and what it does for Decred and the crypto space, including:

• C12's Bison Relay article
• The expansion of Decred's Lightning Network
• How does the Lightning Network work
• Decentralised Social Media
• Non-custodial web services
• Decred's infrastructure and how Bison Relay builds on this
• and where does Decred go from here

If you'd like to be involved in the next Decred Twitter Space contact Tivra @WasPraxis

Join hosts Tivra @WasPraxis and Kozel @artikozel for Decred Twitter space - https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ZkKzXlVvZqJv?s=20

Guests include:

• @DecredSociety 
• @DCR_Uncle 
• @MadScrilla1 
• @Knighty_007 
• @zippycorners 
• @h3la1

In this episode,we talk Bison Relay and what it does for Decred and the crypto space, including:

• Decentralised Social Media
• Non-custodial web services
• Decred's infrastructure and how Bison Relay builds on this
• and where does Decred go from here

If you'd like to be involved in the next Decred Twitter Space contact Tivra @WasPraxis

Join the Decred community! Twitter: https://twitter.com/decredproject Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/decred Telegram: https://t.me/Decred Discord: https://discord.com/invite/GJ2GXfz Matrix: https://chat.decred.org/

Decred and the State Of The Market is brought to you by @Exitus and @DecredSociety and aims to look at current social, economic, and crypto news and how it relates to Decred.

As this is the last episode of the year, we’re taking the opportunity to discuss some of the big event and how they’ve impacted Decred and the space in general.

All the articles, charts and notes can be found at - https://www.decredmagazine.com

For those not in the loop, Decred is building a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) around the premise of sound money. Decred has a fix maximum supply of 21 million, is governed by its coin holders and is self funded from its decentralised treasury.

Through its decentralised, open sources and fee-less exchange (DCRDEX), Decred aims to be not only a project for peer to peer transactions but a platform for peer to peer exchange. An interoperability factor unparalleled by any other project.

Find out more about Decred: https://decred.org

#DEX #DAO #BTC #DCR #inflation