Version 2.0
This refreshed messaging document is the backbone of all communications, including external marketing content (e.g., web copy, press releases, etc) and internal correspondence. It can be expanded, contracted, or tailored as needed.
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, and people who are familiar with the technical nuances of blockchain technology.
- 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, and third-party intermediaries, and are interested in the promise of crypto and blockchain.
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.
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 a new way of making consensus changes and project-level decisions that avoids 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).
This is 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 good decisions when given direct and formal sovereignty in which they have control over their own actions - without being subjugated to a representative.
Fairness
Decred believes that the time has come to create a fair 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.
This is 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.
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, fair, 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.
- Adaptable
- Built to last
- Cohesive
- Community-directed
- Decentralized
- Enduring
- Fair
- 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
- Sovereign
- Transparent
- Values-based
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:
- 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.
- Adaptable: Decred has built-in formalized governance that allows it to make changes to its consensus rules while avoiding hard forks.
- 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. That is equivalent to roughly $21 million.