Decred (DCR) update brought LN support, voting, and a new privacy system
- Crypto project Decred recently rolled out a new update for its network.
- The update brought support for Lightning Network, a new voting system, and a mixer.
- The new features will improve scalability, spending transparency, and transaction privacy.
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Crypto project Decred (DCR) recently launched a new update, which brought new version 1.6 of its system. The move brought a number of changes, including security, privacy, and scalability improvements.
Decred now uses Lightning Network to improve scalability
Scalability issues have been encountered throughout the crypto space, although many newer projects have found ways to work around it and offer great speeds. But, if you wanted to trade Bitcoin (BTC), for example — you still have to wait at least 10 minutes for your transaction to be processed. Even then, it would be very expensive.
Bitcoin developers came up with several solutions, but the one with the most potential is the Lightning Network, which was just supported by Decred v1.6.
No longer Bitcoin-specific, the LN acts as a layer-two protocol, and it uses off-chain transactions to enable faster payments, lower fees, and enable micropayments. All of these are new possibilities for Decred, which will have a major impact on the project’s scalability and eventual mainstream adoption.
New improvements to transparency and privacy
While LN support will have a major impact on Decred, this is far from the only improvement. The project also introduced a new approach to its treasury spending, as well as a new privacy system known as Stakeshuffle.
As some may know, Decred sends 10% of all block rewards to its treasury. The funds are then used for blockchain development, and until recently, all spending was done manually.
But, this leaves the project with a single point of failure, as its community noted. With the new update, users will be able to vote and approve of any funds leaving the project’s treasury, thus making it more decentralized and accountable.
As for Stakeshuffle, it is a new, optional privacy system that allows users to anonymize their Decred (DCR) transactions. The system utilizes the CoinShuffle++ protocol, which allows P2P mixing. As a result, individual transactions will no longer be traceable.
The feature is accessible via the project’s Decrediton wallet. The team also liked the feature enough to add it to its staking mechanism as well, in order to improve privacy even further.
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