Decred seems like a unique name, I thought it might help to define the name Decred. Why was this name chosen?
Hi RegenX, welcome! Originally, when the brainstorming happened for a name, "decentralized credit" came up. I think Decred will end up being a made-up word and take the meaning people assign to it. Epistemologically, it could come to represent the discrediting of a ruling order, or the toxic elements thereof (i.e., to remove credibility). That may be seen as a bit too aggressive and "out there" for a general audience, but I like to think it's progress to challenge things in a constructive way. That's just me personally, and others will look at it differently, so you can see how it's flexible for meaning.
The airdrop will certainly help with decentalisation as well. It's a very tough balance, but we hope Decred can contribute and make strides in all the areas the project has identified. Not saying it's going to be a perfect system, but everything in our power will be done to make it better.
But airdrop of 4% coins covers maximum 5000 participants. And small amount of developers will keep other 4%. So at decred launch we have situation, that ~ 5000 people control 8% of all coins. 0.000071% of all people will control 8% from the very first day. Isn't it seem to became centralized?
It's important to keep in mind that the process of decentralizing decisions and groups is very much an incremental process. For example, Bitcoin has a properly decentralized ledger and a decentralized way for timestamping entries in that ledger, but the coins, development, social media, and the PoW mining are very much centralized despite the ledger and mining being, in principle, decentralized. If the maximum block size is increased past a certain point, the ledger will also become centralized since the resource drain required to run a full node will become unsustainable for the average home user. Further, the majority of bitcoins are owned by a small number of people, estimated to be somewhere in the low 100s to low 1,000s. While we would obviously like to have Decred be "more decentralized", that can mean a lot of things since there are many components to a cryptocurrency: Am I talking about the ledger, the coins, PoW miners, PoS miners, development or social media? We figured that one of the ways we could directly increase the decentralization of Decred was to have the airdrop, where we give away 50% of the premined coins. A larger airdrop was considered, but 50% of the premine is the largest premine we could do without directly risking the security of PoS mining at launch. The trouble with trying to decentralize things besides the coin distribution is that they are either out of our control or difficult to decentralize, e.g. it's an outstanding problem to decentralize development properly. We bounded the number of airdrop participants at 5,000 because we wanted to avoid creating an enormous amount of work for ourselves prior to launch, so this is purely a practical consideration. Even with a 5,000 participant cap, we have been kept very busy with the airdrop process. The airdrop was an "easy" way to decentralize the distribution of the coins from launch, but these other components are harder to decentralize. We will be pursuing the decentralization of these other parts of Decred as funding and time allows. The airdrop is what we saw as the "lowest hanging fruit" in terms of decentralizing the project, and its scale is limited by practical considerations.
I know it sounds generic but a faucet would help ever so slightly. I had an idea, starting a new thread.
Decentralized Credit >> Decred , so which credit will decentralized ?? i need an explain about Decred meaning
@raditya: It's just a made up (invented) word. Think of it like Canon, Skype, Ikea, Lego, Verizon, etc.
Yeah, I was just reading up on all that drama. Kinda sad, considering a huge selling point was it being decentralized. I really, REALLY hope Decred can stay decentralized. The devs seem to genuinely care from what I've seen, hopefully everyone else will.
There is one and only one gauge of decentralization: how many will eventually benefit from this technology. No other criteria is as important. If it can become a driving force for future technological progress, the purpose of the project will have come closer to fulfillment.
WARNING... Longish Post ahead: At the risk of offering a dissenting opinion and certainly not meaning to offend all of the amazing effort put into this project which I want to support, I would like to raise the idea that names, brands, sounds, colors, etc. MATTER to HUMANS and will most certainly affect ADOPTION RATES. Colors, sounds, shapes, et al. have been shown to illicit both conscious and sub conscious response (including autonomic response) in humans. Although it may seem trivial at first, my concern with the current name, logo, color, is that it does NOT quickly embody some critical elements needed for a system like this to become widespread and trusted quickly. Consider, a very trust worthy person, Bob, who intends to promote his coffee shop by walking around a city and give FREE COFFEE and PASTRY cards to random people. Bob is honest, well spoken, and otherwise seems trustworthy when you speak to him. Bob goes out 2 days in a row, each day wearing a different outfit. Day 1 Bob is wearing baggy pants and a skull cap, black hoodie and black leather gloves with dark sunglasses. He kinda looks like a "thug". Day 2 Bob is wearing a bright blue polo shirt, khaki slacks and white tennis shoes with a plastic "badge" on a lanyard around his neck with his Coffee House logo on it and the words... Have a Cup of Coffee on Us! Now... since this isn't a real scientific experiment and only a thought experiment, just let yourself consider this question... If you had to make a single bet of $1,000 on which day Bob will be most successful in attracting random strangers to try out his coffee shop... Which day would you bet on. For the record, I would bet on Day 2. Back to the DECRED name and IDENTITY.... The stated words that describe this project are things like Decentralized (intended to imply TRUST and ROBUSTNESS), Interoperability (FRIENDLY and OPEN), NOT a pump and dump scheme (LONG LIVED and STABLE), and many other WORDS which convey not only features but also FEELINGS. Black, Grey, Red, are colors associated with FEAR and PAIN. Sounds like KRE, CRUH, GOR, DRED, are consonant dominant, low energy, guttural sounds which invoke strength, aggression, caution and/or fear. Shapes that are sharp angled, rigid, geometric, are perceived as cold, hard and "machine like". As opposed to... Green, White, Blue, Pink, Orange, Yellow, are colors associated with Happiness, Trust, Light, etc. Sounds like Eee, Eye, O, Ing, Ay, are vowel heavy, high energy, welcoming, and non aggressive. Shapes that are rounded, wispy, curved are warm, inviting and "human". IMHO... De-CRED immediately puts several other words into ones head. "Not CREDIBLE" "Crud" "Decry" "Decrypt" "InCREDulous" And those words promote very negative connotations and FEELINGS. Just like the honest guy in the hoodie giving away free coffee... If a BUSY PERSON takes the time to stop, talk and get to know him, then his dress will become non-important after a short while of conversation, seeing him smile and laugh, explaining about his new coffee shop, and the great, sweet pastries he bakes every morning. HOWEVER... MANY people will AVOID and ASSUME things about him based on their first experience. In fact, even after learning more about this stranger, his appearance will always be in the mind of those exposed to him. In Decred's case... At first glance, it seems dark, and "sounds" a bit shady; not a good thing in a digital currency. ONLY AFTER reading extensively and learning (investing time MOST people won't bother doing) I decided to support the efforts here. I have personally sent about a dozen people to check out Decred and all but 2 questioned the name and said is sounded shady. They asked me again and again if I was "sure" it was ok. AGAIN... I am supporting this project regardless of what you call it. This is just "food for thought". *IF* you were ever to consider changing the name and the branding, NOW would be the time to get that done. With great tools out there like 99 Designs for crowdsourced designs and a large community that could get a great vote for the best name/logo contest going on, it might be worth considering.
I initially had the same considerations as Eric. Now that I have had time to digest this a bit, I have to admit that the unusual name is part of what made this whole project intriguing enough for me to look into it. Human nature is that anything which arouses curiosity will stand out. From a marketing perspective it works surprisingly well. Controversy sells , rebellion sells, but only if it is backed up by a solid , real package.