Decred Journal – February 2023

Image: Decred Birthday Cake

Highlights of February:

Contents:

DCRDEX v0.5.9 Release

v0.5.9 was released with v0.6 just around the corner to enable automatically deployed Docker images for Umbrel. However, there are many other fixes in this release that were backported from v0.6 development:

Full release notes and standalone DEX app downloads can be found here. Hashes and signatures are included that allow for verification that downloads have not been damaged or modified by third parties.

Bison Relay v0.1.4 Release

Bison Relay received another quality of life update with v0.1.4:

Short video overview of new features is available here.

Get the latest release on the improved downloads page. Bug reports and feedback are welcome in GitHub issue tracker and the #br Matrix chat.

Development

The work reported below has the “merged to master” status unless noted otherwise. It means that the work is completed, reviewed, and integrated into the source code that advanced users can build and run, but is not yet available in release binaries for regular users.

dcrd

dcrd is a full node implementation that powers Decred’s peer-to-peer network around the world.

Most changes focused on making consensus deployment code more robust and easier to understand:

Docker:

Other:

dcrwallet

dcrwallet is a wallet server used by command-line and graphical wallet apps.

dcrctl

dcrctl is a command-line client for dcrd and dcrwallet.

Decrediton

Decrediton is a full-featured desktop wallet app with integrated voting, StakeShuffle mixing, Lightning Network, DEX trading, and more. It runs with or without a full blockchain (SPV mode).

In progress:

vspd

vspd is server software for running a Voting Service Provider. A VSP votes on behalf of its users 24/7 and cannot steal funds.

cspp

cspp is a server for coordinating coin mixes using the CoinShuffle++ protocol. It is non-custodial, i.e. does not hold any funds.

DCRDEX

DCRDEX is a non-custodial, privacy-respecting exchange for trustless trading, powered by atomic swaps.

The v0.5.9 release was made to support the Umbrel integration, but it also includes many important fixes made in master since around December 2022:

All other changes below are in the master branch towards the next v0.6 release.

Client changes:

Client, fidelity bonds progress:

Client fixes:

Ethereum, RPC data providers:

Ethereum, swap fee optimization:

Ethereum, other changes:

Ethereum’s upgrade to proof-of-stake consensus (also called The Merge) happened to brick the light client used by DCRDEX, despite some expectation that it will work. This has delayed DCRDEX v0.6 quite a bit while a workaround had to be developed. Until light clients are fixed DEX users will have a choice of running an own full node or using centralized chain data providers like Infura, Ankr, and 8 others.

Umbrel app store integration:

Timestamply

Timestamply is a free service for timestamping files powered by Decred blockchain. A timestamp proves that a certain file has existed at a certain moment of time. This has a range of applications in protecting data integrity.

Documentation

dcrdocs is the source code for Decred user documentation.

Bison Relay

Bison Relay is a new social media platform with strong protections against censorship, surveillance, and advertising, powered by Decred Lightning Network.

Common changes in GUI and CLI apps in v0.1.4 release:

GUI app changes in v0.1.4 release:

Command-line app changes in v0.1.4 release:

Server and other changes in v0.1.4:

Common changes in GUI and CLI apps merged in master towards the next release (v0.1.5):

GUI app changes in master:

CLI app changes in master:

Other stuff:

People

Community stats as of Mar 1 (compared to Feb 2):

Governance

In February the new treasury received 7,620 DCR worth $183K at February’s average rate of $24.03. 3,389 DCR was spent to pay contractors, worth $81K at February’s rate.

The treasury spend tx had 27 outputs making payments to contractors, ranging from 3 DCR to 1,084 DCR. Most of this DCR was likely paid for December invoices, there is now a persistent lag between the end of the month and the creation of the TSpend for that month, so that by the time transactions are approved by stakeholders it is typically two months after the month when work was conducted. At December’s billing rate of $19.79 the February TSpend is equivalent to $67K.

Image: Decred Treasury monthly inflows and outflows.

As of Mar 14, combined balance of legacy and new treasury is 844,504 DCR (16.8 million USD at $19.88).

Image: Decred Treasury balance history.

There were no new proposals published in Feb, and the proposals which finished voting in the month were covered in the January issue of the Journal.

Network

Hashrate: February’s hashrate opened at ~73 Ph/s and closed ~71 Ph/s, bottoming at 60 Ph/s and peaking at 83 Ph/s throughout the month.

Image: Decred hashrate.

Distribution of 66 Ph/s hashrate reported by the pools on Mar 1: Poolin 51%, F2Pool 38%, AntPool 11%, CoinMine 0.4%.

Distribution of 1,000 blocks actually mined by Mar 1: Poolin 54%, F2Pool 36%, AntPool 6%, likely BTC.com 4%.

Image: Historical pool hashrate distribution.

Staking: Ticket price varied between 207-496.5 DCR, with 30-day average at 263.8 DCR (+51.3).

After a dramatic drop to 140 DCR in January ticket price skyrocketed to set a new all-time high of 496.5 DCR. It returned to normal levels a week later and settled around 230 DCR.

Image: Ticket price made its biggest swing in history.

The locked amount was 8.76-9.69 million DCR, meaning that 58.5-64.9% of the circulating supply participated in Proof of Stake. This was also more volatile than usual.

Image: Drop and recovery of DCR locked in PoS.

VSP: The 16 listed VSPs collectively managed ~7,410 (-980) live tickets, which was 18.4% of the ticket pool (-0.4%) as of Mar 1.

The only gainers in February were dcrhive.com (+383 tickets or +74%) and vsp.decredcommunity.org (+202 tickets or +38%). The other 14 VSPs lost ~25% tickets on average, but the loss should be considered in context of the ticket pool size correcting from abnormal ~44,880 down to its target of 40,960 tickets.

Image: Distribution of tickets managed by VSPs.

Nodes: Decred Mapper observed between 175 and 188 dcrd nodes throughout the month. Versions of 176 nodes seen on Mar 1: v1.7.5 - 34%, v1.7.1 - 22%, v1.8.0 dev builds - 13%, v1.7.2 - 11%, v1.7.0 - 10%, v1.7.4 - 3%, other - 7%.

Image: Historical dcrd version distribution, data from nodes.jholdstock.uk. Data until Jan 2023 was incomplete.

The share of mixed coins varied between 59.2-60.4%. Daily mixed volume varied between 206-865K DCR.

Since a large portion of mixed coins comes from staking, the drop of staked DCR has resulted in a drop of mixed volume as well. It went back to normal towards the end of February as stake participation recovered.

Image: Drop and recovery of mixed and unspent coin percentage.

Image: Daily mix volume varied more than usual.

Decred’s Lightning Network explorer has seen 158 nodes (+11), 305 channels (+44) with a total capacity of 115 DCR (+9), as of Mar 1. These stats vary depending on the LN node. For example, @karamble’s node reported 172 nodes (+12), 385 channels (+38) and 168 DCR (+9) capacity on same Mar 1.

Outreach

Monde PR’s achievements:

Secured the following media placements:

Commentary on Decred Magazine was originally drafted for a crypto publication but was not used. Instead of throwing it away it was repurposed and published on DM.

Events

Attended:

Image: Decred 7th birthday cake.

Media

Nostr users can now follow Decred announcements at: npub1decredzl29afqaalgw79kzz7cscrakzul00zgq9qymt4weqg03fsqmmnzd (preview). Post your public keys in this thread to help bootstrap a Decred community on Nostr.

Selected articles:

Decred Magazine engagement stats for February:

Decred Magazine has started building an audience on TikTok. Engagement with @decredmagazine is greatly appreciated.

Videos:

Livestream:

Audio:

Twitter Spaces:

Art and fun:

Decred is a true unicorn among the established cryptocurrencies. It’s commonly described as an extremely versatile creature, a symbol of crypto purity and grace.

Translations:

Non-English content:

Discussions:

Other:

Markets

In February DCR was trading between USDT 21.71-28.52 and BTC 0.00095-0.00121. The average daily rate was $24.03.

Image: DCRDEX monthly volume in USD.

Relevant External

Localbitcoins, the longstanding facilitator of person to person Bitcoin exchanges, is closing down. After 10 years in action Localbitcoins could not withstand the “ongoing very cold crypto winter”, and suspended trading on Feb 16, remaining online only for users to withdraw any balances.

Crypto exchange Kraken has settled with the SEC over “Unregistered Offer and Sale of Crypto Asset Staking-As-A-Service Program” and agreed to “Pay $30 Million to Settle SEC Charges”. This has been presented as part of a larger crackdown on exchange provided staking services, where exchanges generate revenue by staking users’ tokens and pay some proportion of this to the token holders. The stated motivation for these actions is to provide investors with reliable information about what custodians of their tokens are using them for, but as Kraken CEO Jesse Powell has tweeted, this is not as easy as filling in a form, and for companies that have tried to engage with the approval process it has not gone well.

The Oasis DeFi protocol was used to “counter-exploit” the hacker who stole 120,000 ETH from the Wormhole bridge in Feb 2022 and steal back funds they had deposited in the platform, after its developers were ordered to by a British High Court. After the Wormhole Bridge was exploited last year, Jump Crypto (its VC backer) stepped in to make users whole and has since been tracking the stolen funds with a view to retrieval. As reported by Blockworks, Jump Crypto likely played a key role in the retrieval, they provided funds to reclaim the collateral and close open positions and it is likely they are also the “Whitehat group” referenced in the Oasis blog post who provided a proof of concept on how the assets could be retrieved. The counter-exploit involved an upgradeable contract and adding a new signer to the 4-of-12 multisig that owns the Oasis contracts. It is not clear what the process was to generate the court order to perform the exploit.

Optimism, a layer 2 Ethereum chain, performed its second airdrop, sending 11.7 million OP tokens to over 300,000 addresses. This airdrop rewarded users who delegated their OP for governance, and users who spent more than $6 on gas fees, along with multipliers for delegating more for longer or using more gas. Optimism is committed to distributing 19% of its supply in airdrops, and the first one in May 2022 distributed 5%.

Facebook parent Meta reported losses of $13.7 billion in its Metaverse Division for 2022, and warned that the losses would accelerate further in 2023.

India is aiming to launch its CBDC by the end of 2023 and has two ongoing trials for a wholesale and retail facing CBDC which have been expanding, but not without difficulty. India already has a ubiquitous Unified Payments Interface (UPI) operated by banks which is widely used and exposes user data to the bank operators - the retail CBDC is seen as a way to offer a more cash-like and privacy respecting means of making payments without bank intermediaries.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) central bank announced plans to issue a CBDC for domestic and cross-border payments as part of a new project to accelerate digital transformation.

In January National Australia Bank became the second major Australian bank to create a stablecoin (AUDN) to allow business customers to settle transactions on blockchain technology in real-time using Australian dollars. They aim to launch mid-year and support transactions including overseas payments and carbon credit trading, and the stated purpose is to boost the digital economy. This comes 9 months after Melbourne based rival ANZ created a similar product (A$DC). The Reserve Bank of Australia is exploring use cases for CBDC and will choose some pilot projects in the first half of 2023.

That’s all for February. Share your updates for the next issue in our #journal chat room.

About

This is issue 56 of Decred Journal. Index of all issues, mirrors, and translations is available here.

Most information from third parties is relayed directly from the source after a minimal sanity check. The authors of the Decred Journal cannot verify all claims. Please beware of scams and do your own research.

Credits (alphabetical order):