On Saturday, February 8th, the Decred blockchain will have been adding blocks for 4 years. #DecredGlobalMeetups are taking place across the world in at least twenty different cities across five continents. The heartbeat of the community and its thriving ecosystem has never been stronger, as Decred continues its long-term approach to re-building the financial system in a fairer way.

The robust and decentralized community of OG cypherpunks and intellectuals embody the core principles of the project and represent its greatest strength. They have built hardware, started stakepools, and represented Decred at events. They have staked their coins in exchange for direct sovereignty over Decred, and made and commented on Politeia proposals and voted at an unprecedented rate. They have visually, emotionally and rationally defined what it means to be one of us.

Year markers are a time to reflect, cognizant of the hardening force of the Lindy effect. Bootstrapped by Company 0 and two pseudonymous entities, Decred approaches it’s fourth birthday with a robust ecosystem of blockchain economics. The supply side is strong, and the contractor system supports a vibrant community of diverse contributors to sustainably build, research, document and communicate the project. The decentralization is such that Company 0 now makes up a minority of developers working on Decred.

While other projects launched ICOs, competed to see who had a bigger white paper, and talked about how their project would revolutionize X, Y, or Z, Decred kept its head down and coded. At a total cost of 7M USD, here is a list of some of the deliverables it has generated.

• Tools for atomic swaps
• Wallet with graphical user interface (GUI)
• Changed consensus rules repeatedly per the stakeholder’s direction
• Project management system, Politeia
• Decentralizing control of the Treasury
• Experimented and iterated community resource allocation
• Built Contractor Management System (CMS) to govern contributors
• Privacy system ensures auditability of the blockchain
• Approved, specified and building alpha decentralized exchange (DEX)
• Mobile app for Android and iOS
• Simple Payment Verification (SPV)
• Lightning Network

The infrastructure being put into place is built for the long horizon. These are the foundations that will enable the Decred community to grow, make decisions, and operate on the multi-decade horizon to become a superior store of value, medium of exchange, and serious alternative to Bitcoin. With the evolution of features, including privacy, a decentralized exchange, and Lightning Network, the future of Decred’s ecosystem becomes complete. That is, until the community decides they should be augmented, for which there is a formal process for doing so. These systems are, critically, strongly aligned with project values:

• Free and open source software
• Free speech and consideration
• Multi-stakeholder inclusivity
• Incremental privacy and security
• Fixed finite supply
• Universal fungibility

These values and foundations drive the community and ensure sustainable community growth. The reasons to Iterate Bitcoin persist, and they continue to be proven with the passage of time. The cause has attracted a talented community of developers and contributors. Decred is secure, adaptable, and sustainable, and internal development and external forces will make 2020 a great year to be one of us.