Following last year’s very well publicised crisis moment for Bitcoin, it’s very tempting to believe that the moment for cryptocurrency has passed. Confidence in these new technologies has waned significantly, and there’s a general understanding of how volatile the market is. But though it is still true that cryptocurrency is not as stable as more established currencies, the technology isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
So while you may have missed the first major boom in digital currency, there is a likelihood that we are going to see some interesting developments in 2019. Here are some cryptocurrencies to watch this year.
Ethereum works not just as a digital currency but as a platform for users to build their own cryptocurrency. Users take the building blocks provided by Ethereum’s blockchain and create their own application so that it can be used to manage things like supply chain.
At the end of 2018, Ethereum had started to show growth again after the 2017 peak. At it’s highest peak, it had grown around 3000%, the second largest after Bitcoin. “During the course of this year,” says Jay Stokes, author at researchpapersuk.com, “ Ethereum is expected to continue to rise in value, as plans roll out to improve its technology.”
Launched in 2016, Decred has become a well regarded currency that aims to democratize its model. There’s a focus on the actual work of data mining, with partial rewards going back to those who can offer proof of work. These individuals can have a direct say in the management and direction of the project.
To facilitate this decentralized governance, the developers have created an efficient and simple voting system to achieve consensus. Utilizing smart contracts the model is resistant to any potential outside parties that would seek to influence votes being cast.
Founded by Ethereum’s Charles Hoskinson, Cardano works through a smart contract platform. The developers take remarkable care to maintain the platform, and seek to standardise and promote Cardano’s protocol technology.
Charles Hoskinson claims that Cardano is the next stage in evolution for blockchain technology. It is built on meticulous academic and scientific research in order to combat issues surrounding blockchain technology, including scalability, interoperability and sustainability.
Created in 2014, Dash is a decentralized autonomous organization as well as a cryptocurrency. As an open source asset, it works on a principle of self-governance. In its early days, it was known as Xcoin, a ‘fork’ of the Bitcoin protocol, but as an altcoin, it earned a bad reputation as the cryptocurrency used on the dark web.
However, following a rebrand as Dash (Digital Cash), it ceased operating on the dark in 2016. Payments via Dash are almost instantaneous, and through user engagement protocols, the community which uses it are all geared towards improving its development.
Developed in late 2016, ZEC is geared around security and transparency. The two main protocols of Zcash involve either shielded or transparent pools.
Private transactions can be disclosed to aid transparency, allowing users to prove payments in order to comply with governmental regulation and tax services. In this way, Zcash has been at the forefront of creating a sustainable future for cryptocurrency.
“The developers of ZCash have been very public in meeting with law enforcement agencies” says Carina Rodriguez, contributor to draftbeyond.com, “This, finally, is a bid to show a united front against illegal cryptocurrency activity.”
Monero has had a somewhat controversial year. Some studies during the year showed that around 4.3% of the total supply of XMR had been mined illegally. For many, this is a worrying part of cryptocurrency. However, as the industry as a whole move towards a more legitimate, less shady mode of practice, it is interesting to note that during the time these studies were published, XMR’s value seemed to have fluctuated very little. It is based on the CryptoNight ‘Proof of work’ algorithm, pushing miners to seek legitimate sources of data.
Unlike, for instance, ZCash, Monero is developed around utter financial privacy, allowing payments and balances to remain hidden. Though it remains a controversial choice of Bitcoin, it continues to be a versatile crypto asset used across the world.
Benjamin Schmitt is an experienced lifestyle writer and app developer. He writes on app development and a range of other topics for Gum Essays and Lucky Assignments.
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Decred, a creation of Bitcoin developers, rolls out decentralized governance, claiming a first in blockchain technology.
Decred is a cryptocurrency project and platform built from the ground up to leverage the will of its constituents to drive change. This approach eliminates the conflicts that arise when powerful entities attempt to assert control over a cryptocurrency.
Tomorrow, April 25, 2017 marks the release of Decred v1.0. This historic release puts Decred stakeholders in charge of shaping the future of Decred through direct community consensus voting.
For the first time in the history of cryptocurrencies, governing control moves away from centralized authorities, such as developers and miners, and is given to the community of stakeholders. Decentralization struggles without decentralized governance; this is especially true when it comes to a rapidly growing global currency.
Most cryptocurrencies distinguish themselves by how they secure the transactions on their network.
For example, Bitcoin is famous for using a proof-of-work algorithm that rewards miners for finding solutions to a cryptographic hash puzzle. Other cryptocurrency projects rely on proof-of-stake algorithms that reward users who hold the currency in a “staking” wallet with interest on the balances they carry.
Both approaches have strengths and limitations; Decred takes advantage of the best of both worlds with a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake consensus system. This allows the platform to strike a balance between benefits to both miners and stakeholders, giving rise to a more robust notion of consensus.
The 1.0 release of Decred will include the first community vote on two important issues.
After 75% or more of miners and stakeholders have updated to 1.0, Decred stakeholders will be able to vote on one consensus change and one signaling vote. Due to the rapidly growing popularity of Decred, the number of stakeholders buying vote tickets has increased dramatically, leading to large oscillations in the ticket price.
This is a good example of an unanticipated condition which needs to be resolved though community consensus. A new ticket price algorithm will aim to ease the large oscillations in ticket price and lead to better ticket price discovery while still maintaining the target ticket pool size.
A consensus change of this magnitude is very difficult to achieve in more traditional cryptocurrencies and requires the voluntary acceptance of the code by miners that may or may not have their own agendas. If it passes, the new ticket price algorithm will activate seamlessly for everyone with no further intervention. The second vote will allow stakeholders to signal support for Lightning Network development.
The Lightning Network is a payment layer that makes it economical and fast to process payments, especially small payments, like buying a cup of coffee without having to pay a large transaction fee to process the transaction. If this signaling vote passes, the developers will begin work on integrating Lightning Network on the Decred blockchain. Once development is complete and tested, a future consensus vote can be taken to automatically activate the Lightning Network code.
The recent 2017 roadmap highlights some of the other massive innovations that the team hopes to put up for a vote throughout the year. In addition, a new improvement proposal system will be put in place soon to allow for the community to contribute directly to the agenda.
The release of Decred 1.0 is a watershed moment in the cryptocurrency movement. This digital currency finally does what has never been done before, putting the power of change in the hands of the very people that care about it most. Decred is celebrating version 1.0.0 release with a puzzle challenge.
The ‘Autonomy Puzzle’ challenge features an initial prize of 500 decred (DCR) to the first solver, equivalent to approximately USD 7,500 at the time of this release. However, players will be working against the clock, as the prize will be reduced every 24 hours. The puzzle difficulty level has been rated ‘easy to medium’, as Decred is aiming to include participants of all skill levels.
We recently added Decred among the available digital currencies you can store on the HolyTransaction multicurrency wallet.
We define it as “multicurrency” because you can store more than 10 different cryptocurrencies within the same account and login details.
Open your Decred Wallet here and store it right next to your own Bitcoin, Ethereum and more.
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
Decred (DCR) is a digital currency created back in 2015 by Bitcoin’s BTCSuite developers, an alternative full node bitcoin implementation written in Go.
“Decred uses a hybridized consensus system to strike a balance between miners and users to create a more robust currency”, as it was created both with proof of work (PoW) and with proof of stake (PoS).
This hybrid consensus system allows users to create a balance between proof-of-work miners and proof-of-stake users in order to have a much more robust consensus.
This relatively new cryptocurrency aims at addressing issues related to the increasing centralization of power within the bitcoin blockchain and the growing conflict of interest between the bitcoin community and those who fund the Bitcoin core project.
Also, it is important to say that Decred can be both mined and staked.
When Bitcoin was originally released, it was working in a market that didn’t exist before. There were issues that could be fixed thanks to new digital currencies such as Litecoin or Dogecoin.
Of course, time is showing that Bitcoin is not a failure at all and it radically changed the idea of money.
Decred has several new features in order to combine the very best of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake chains with the main objective of utilising both systems in Decred.
Also, Decred defines itself as “self-funded and progressive” and it relies completely on a community governance and opensource features.
Decred developer Christina Jepson explained:
“The intention is not to attack what we currently have in Bitcoin. We want to recognize what has been done well, but instead, we want to take that and improve on what we think can be done better… That is the spirit that started the technology and we want to return to that to explore options to problems we cannot explore in the current system while we continue to support the Bitcoin software. Alternatives are progress and a way forward to improve the greater ecosystem.”
That said, if you want to start buying and selling Decred coins, you will need the right wallet to store them properly.
Recently, we at HolyTransaction added a new wallet on our platform in order to allow you to store your Decred right behind your bitcoin and more than other 20 digital currencies.
Within the same login, in fact, you can store all your cryptocurrencies in a safe place with low fees.
Open here your new wallet to store, buy and sell your favorite coins.
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
We’re excited to announce that we’ve been working to provide you with a new service: a Decred wallet.
From now on, in fact, you can instantly purchase Decred through your Holytransaction wallet, transfer them to any HolyTransaction’s user for free, and make crypto-to-crypto transfers between Decred and more than 13 digital currencies.
All of our HolyTransaction users can create new addresses for Decred balances and use the simple HolyTransaction Web Wallet to send and receive transactions or to instantly convert them to any other cryptocurrency.
Just like Bitcoin and 12 other digital currencies, you can now:
Decred (DCR) is a digital currency created back in 2015 by Bitcoin’s BTCSuite developers.
“Decred uses a hybridized consensus system to strike a balance between miners and users to create a more robust currency”, as you can read on their official website too.
This new digital currency aims to address issues related to the increasing centralization of power within the bitcoin blockchain and the growing conflict of interest between community and those who fund the Bitcoin core project.
About its technology, we have to say that Decred is a hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake (PoW/PoS) digital currency that can be both mined and staked.
If you can’t see the newest Decred wallet, you just need to click on the “plus” button you find at the top right of the main page, once you have successfully entered your wallet.
You can find the “plus” button to select the wallets you want to see in the balance page, just like shown in the picture below.
Click on the image to enlarge it:
We are so glad to be part of this new community!
Open your new multicurrency wallet here. You just need 1 minute.
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.