Decred Journal – April 2023

Image: Untitled by @Exitus

Highlights of April:

Contents:

Core Software v1.7.7 Release

Highlights of the v1.7.7 release:

Visit the GitHub release for the full list of changes and downloads. As always, we recommend to verify the files before running.

Image: New launcher views - learn about Decred while the wallet is syncing

DCRDEX v0.6.0 Release

The long-awated v0.6 has shipped around 8 months of development work. Major changes since v0.5:

Other notable changes:

There are 3 ways to obtain DCRDEX:

Please take the time to read Important Notices to learn about specifics of non-custodial P2P trading.

Tips:

Image: Updated trading view in DCRDEX v0.6.0

Image: Updated wallet view in DCRDEX v0.6.0

Bison Relay v0.1.7 Release

New release has landed just 4 weeks since v0.1.6 RC1. Notable changes in v0.1.7 final:

Get the latest release binaries on GitHub. Bison Relay downloads can now be verified thanks to the added signatures made by the same key that signs Decred releases (Decred Release <release@decred.org> with fingerprint F516ADB7A069852C7C28A02D6D897EDF518A031D).

Check the install guide and the tipping guide to avoid common issues with receiving tips. Find more Bison Relay video guides at @DecredTV.

Image: Bison Relay v0.1.7

Image: Oprah’s tipping in action in Bison Relay

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.

Past changes backported to v1.7.7 release:

Changes merged in master towards future releases:

dcrwallet

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

Changes backported to v1.7.7 release:

Changes merged in master towards future releases:

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).

Changes backported to v1.7.7 release:

See the release notes for a summary of all changes since v1.7.6.

vspd

vspd is server software used by Voting Service Providers. A VSP votes on behalf of its users 24/7 and cannot steal funds.

Lightning Network

dcrlnd is Decred’s Lightning Network node software. LN enables instant and low-cost transactions.

cspp

cspp is a server for coordinating coin mixes using the CoinShuffle++ protocol. It is non-custodial, i.e. never holds any funds. CSPP is part of StakeShuffle, Decreds privacy system.

DCRDEX

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

Client changes included in v0.6.0 release:

All other changes below are merged in master towards future releases.

Client:

Ethereum:

Litecoin:

Zcash:

DigiByte:

Server:

Other:

In progress:

Image: DigiByte is coming to DCRDEX

Image: Umbrel is one more way to get DCRDEX

decred.org

dcrweb is the source code for the decred.org website.

Bison Relay

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

New features have been first tested by the community in Release Candidate 1 which revealed a few bugs that got fixed in v0.1.7 final.

Common changes in GUI and CLI apps in v0.1.7:

GUI app changes in v0.1.7:

GUI app issues found in v0.1.7 Release Candidate 1 and fixed in v0.1.7 final:

CLI app changes in v0.1.7:

Changes merged in master towards future releases:

Other stuff:

Image: Bison Relay can now be used as a simple DCR wallet

Image: Tipping users in Bison Relay got much easier

Image: Friendly bot helps to discover public chats

Other

People

Welcome the new first-time contributors:

Congratulations to @norwnd for getting the Decred Contractor Clearance!

Community stats as of May 3 (compared to Apr 3):

Governance

In April the new treasury received 7,958 DCR worth $161K at April’s average rate of $20.22. 3,087 DCR was spent to pay contractors, worth $62K at April’s average rate.

A treasury spend tx was approved with 6,900 Yes votes and 54% turnout, and mined on Apr 16. It had 23 outputs making payments to contractors, ranging from 7 DCR to 1,102 DCR. Most of this DCR was likely paid for February work, at its billing exchange rate of $24.03 the TSpend is worth around $74K.

As of May 9, combined balance of legacy and new treasury is 856,305 DCR ($14.5 million USD at $16.96).

Image: Decred Treasury balance in DCR

Image: Decred Treasury balance in USD

There were 2 new proposals submitted in April:

@jy-p’s proposal to change the reward distribution so that PoW miners get just 1% and the hashing algorithm changes was approved with 97% Yes votes and turnout of 62%. @bee has compiled the most common questions and answers from the highly active comments on the proposal. The development work needed to implement the DCP-12 change has already been merged to master.

A proposal from @joegruff to develop Decrediton support for Ledger hardware was approved with 89% Yes votes and 39% turnout.

See Politeia Digest issue 59 for more details on the month’s proposals.

Network

New ATHs in April:

Hashrate: April’s hashrate opened at ~94 Ph/s and closed ~76 Ph/s, bottoming at 62 Ph/s and peaking at 94 Ph/s throughout the month.

Image: Decred hashrate

Distribution of 72 Ph/s hashrate reported by the pools on May 1: Poolin 64%, F2Pool 30%, AntPool 6%, CoinMine 0.3%.

Distribution of 1,000 blocks actually mined by May 1: Poolin 63%, F2Pool 28%, AntPool 6%, BTC.com 2.5%, CoinMine 0.2%.

Image: Historical pool hashrate distribution

Staking: Ticket price varied between 236-253 DCR.

Image: Ticket price has been unusually stable in April

The locked amount was 9.75-9.88 million DCR, meaning that 64.6-65.3% of the circulating supply participated in Proof of Stake.

Image: DCR locked in tickets is crawling up

VSP: The 14 listed VSPs collectively managed ~6,960 (-240) live tickets, which was 17.1% of the ticket pool (-0.5%) as of May 1.

Biggest gainer in April was vspd.bass.cf (+165 tickets or +27%). Two VSPs got delisted.

Image: Distribution of tickets managed by VSPs

Nodes: Decred Mapper observed between 163 and 171 dcrd nodes throughout the month. Versions of 166 nodes seen on May 1: v1.7.5 - 28%, v1.7.1 - 21%, v1.8.0 dev builds - 13%, v1.7.2 - 12%, v1.7.7 - 11%, v1.7.0 - 5%, v1.7.4 - 4%, other - 7%.

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

The share of mixed coins varied between 61.0-61.8%. Daily mixed volume varied between 303-502K DCR.

Image: Mixed supply is on the rise

Image: Uptick in “adjusted transaction volume” as defined by Coin Metrics, in both DCR and USD

Decred’s Lightning Network explorer has seen 196 nodes (+21), 399 channels (+45) with a total capacity of 163 DCR (+34), as of May 1. These stats are different for each node. For example, @karamble’s node reported 193 nodes (+18), 429 channels (+53) and 174 DCR (+39) capacity on same day May 1.

Decred’s LN has surpassed Litecoin LN in node count and channel count, and is getting close in capacity according to Litecoin LN data from 1ML.com.

Image: Decred’s Lightning Network is seeing more nodes

@bochinchero created charts showing balances of top mining addresses against DCR’s price history and key events like ASIC launch dates and CEX listings. While not providing much analysis or commentary on its own, it contributes to the collective research of miners’ participation in malicious suppression of DCR markets, which is the key argument of the recent proposal to reduce mining rewards to 1% and change the mining algorithm.

Image: Combined balance of top 22 mining addresses vs DCR price history

Ecosystem

Services gained or listed:

Image: Trocador.app finds best rates, isolates from vendors, and warns about KYC risks

Services lost or delisted:

Other news:

Coming changes to Decred’s chat platforms:

Join our #ecosystem chat to get more news about Decred services.

Warning: the authors of the Decred Journal have no idea about the trustworthiness of any of the services above. Please do your own research before trusting your personal information or assets to any entity.

Outreach

Monde PR’s achievements:

Secured the following media placements:

Events

Upcoming:

Media

Selected articles:

Whatever the outcome, the next year or so will be an interesting ride. If you’re here for cypherpunk ideals (innovation, decentralisation, non-custodial solution and development), it’s hard not to be enthusiastic for the future. [@OfficialCryptos]

Decred Magazine engagement Stats for April:

Videos:

With Bison Relay, you are no longer the product. Your content and opinions have always had monetary value, but the main difference here is the value belongs to the creator, not the platform. [@phoenixgreen]

Livestream:

Audio:

Translations:

Non-English content:

Discussions:

Other:

Markets

In April DCR was trading between USDT 17.91-25.18 and BTC 0.00061-0.00089. The average daily rate was $20.22.

Image: DCRDEX monthly volume in USD

Relevant External

Bitcoin Ordinals continued to grow, with over 2.5 million being minted so far, with a peak of 223K in a single day, increasing the number of daily Bitcoin transactions to levels not seen since 2017. Much of the recent Ordinals activity is around a new BRC-20 standard for minting fungible tokens in a series.

Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade was activated on mainnet, allowing ETH holders who have been staking their ETH, some of it for years, to finally withdraw it from the staking contract.

The issuer of USDC stablecoin, Circle, has released details of a new method for transferring the asset between blockchains without “lock-and-mint” bridges which have proven to be a great target for hackers - they’re calling it “Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol” or CCTP.

Crypto exchange Bittrex has been charged with violating securities laws by the SEC. The charge names 6 tokens as securities which Bittrex should have registered to trade: OMG Network (OMG), Dash (DASH), Algorand (ALGO), Monolith (TKN), NAGA (NGC), and IHT Real Estate Protocol (IHT). The naming of DASH as a security has been viewed as reflecting a particularly aggressive stance, Dash development is funded by block rewards and it had no (official) pre-mine.

Coinbase has continued in its efforts to engage with the SEC and seek clarity on how they define crypto securities by suing the SEC in an attempt to force it to make its criteria public and clarify its decisions.

Gary Gensler has appeared in a congressional hearing in which he answered some questions about the SEC’s approach, but not whether ETH is classified as a security. He also released a new video comparing crypto securities to dogs impersonating goldfish, in his signature condescending style.

The European Parliament has voted in favor of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licensing regime with 90% Yes votes and turnout of 97%, paving the way for it to become law across the EU in 2024. While the regulations have been welcomed by the industry for the clarity they will bring, many crypto privacy enthusiasts are disappointed that use of mixing services will lead to funds being flagged as high risk. At the same time the parliament voted in favor of Transfer of Funds regulation which will require crypto operators to identify their customers as an anti-money-laundering step - final voting figures were 92% Yes votes with 98% of eligible MEPs voting.

James Zhong, the man who was found to have over 50,000 BTC which he fraudulently obtained from the Silk Road by making simultaneous withdrawal requests, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, and forfeiture orders were granted for all of the BTC and associated assets he had bought with it, including an LLC real estate holding company, gold, silver and Casascius coins.

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

About

This is issue 58 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):