Hey all! I thought this topic would be interesting to get the communities view on how progress is being made with Decred and it's future. I also posted this on the Decred subreddit
1) Team did well with launch. 2) Team has done well with releases .6,.7,.8 problems persist but progress is steady. 3) Pools have been improving, miners have been improving; I look-forward to see hash-rate increase. A decrease would be bad near term. Bringing miners from ETH will be hard right now, but thats the same resource pool. 4) Stake-pool up and running is very nice; look forward to more stake-pools. 5) Bittrex is a good first exchange, volume is good, variance of coin value has been very stable since launch (very very stable vs most coins). Dont rush too fast for polinex, it will be needed...but not for several months. 6) The web-wallet is also nice, however, it needs to show consolidated balance, so need work on webwallet. Overall my assessment is that everything that needs to be worked on is a work in progress and things are happening on all the fronts that make for a functional crypto. I have also been happy to see the block-explorer and the decred stats websites mature.
The GUI wallet will be great. i haven't gotten to test the testnet version yet, but I think that this will help draw in users that would like a bit more simplicity.
To me, a new blockchain project cannot just bring a better algo and PoS to be successful. Ethereum has something new with it's smart contract feature integrated into it's blockchain and this is why it now worths over 11$usd. Privacy focus in Monero is really something to look for too. The problem that I see with DCR is this: it does not present anything unique or worthwhile. Still, one of my rigs mines DCR directly to a PoS wallet that I follow closely, just in case it proves me wrong. I hope it will.
I find this statement pretty surprising. The hybrid PoW/PoS system is absolutely unique and provides something extremely worthwhile; most notably the ability for stake holders to vote on important and controversial things in order to decide the future of the coin versus a handful of developers (or any other entity for that matter). That alone is worth its weight in gold. In addition to that, there is also the developer subsidy, RFP process, formalized governance structure, etc. These are all unique to Decred (at least at the current time, it's likely other coins will take the ideas and use them as well). As far as smart contracts, Decred is also perfectly capable of doing smart contacts at a core level and that is baked into the chain as well. In fact, the scripting system enabled a lot of new opcodes specifically to allow better support for them in the future.
The road to success for any cryptocurrency is bound be to difficult, so it is not surprising that the road to decred's improvement has been a but bumpy. But the good thing is that this road in not like barren desert roads but more like the beautiful roads through lush green forests on the mountains. P.S- Ever been to the southern part of India? Needed to understand the beauty of roads on mountains.
People have pointed me to Bitshares & Nubits when i talk about these things but what i see is those have something or the other missing in their design. I see decred as putting all things together and adding a flavor of there own. To the critics saying decred brings nothing new to the scene, i would say that they do bring some new things and for some old concept being used, please watch this https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDQ6BYd73QHxgeNJPX8yZRcp8wF_B_tph
I find Decred by far one of the most interesting open source projects out there. It's not only a very ambitious protocol, but also its take on governance and sustainance are unique. RFPs are another really cool thing. I really hope more people notice and won't sleep on it.
One thing I would like to see is more social presence by its core devs. You should storm events, write blog posts, spread the word. Or maybe its a good idea for an RFP that anyone could take on.
Why do people expect the devs to do all the work? Have you been served your whole life? The devs are already writting the freakin software. I think other people can spread the word. Like you!
I don't understand your surprise to my request. The "freakin" software may be used by myriads but it's going to be really understood by a few at start (including the devs). So I don't see how just writting the software, gives you a pass to not participate in it socially.
> So I don't see how just writting the software, gives you a pass to not participate in it socially. Not to be misunderstood, you are not required to do all the stuff on top of developing but saying that you are not supposed to do any of that because you are developing is ridiculous.
I believe the devs are indeed doing their fair bit of work. Whether their time is best spent around pure coding vs promoting is a good question. They are indeed the ones with the ability to promote Decred actively, but I believe they're willing to be patient in the beginning to get a good technological basis down for Decred, worrying about promotion later or leaving it to the community for now. Is that the right choice? Also hard to say. On the one hand, the community is indeed active and will promote the project to some extent, within some limits. On the other, leaving promotion by the core developers totally by the wayside may lead to Decred being largely superseded by other cryptocoins, like Ethereum or even bitcoin itself. Beyond a doubt there needs to be some form of promotion that shows the world at large that Decred is a project worth pursuing and looking into, or it may remain a mass of unrealized potential. So for now, I definitely think we have a task of spreading the word as much as possible, but perhaps some sort of effort centralization is eventually due.
No one is "supposed" to do anything, nor does anyone need a "pass". This isnt high school where you have to ask to go to the bathroom. People here are volunteers and they work on it because they are passionate about it. Get involved.
Beauty has different forms and views. As for me, the outside beauty must be together with inner beauty. And the first one is real usage. That is the reason I try to use the perfect cosmetics even here.