Decred, To Sell or Not To Sell

So as you guys have already seen, people are buying Bitcoins like crazy.
Selling their houses, kidneys (both at times), their children, etc. So now everyone like me who heavily invest in altcoins are faced with a dilemma.

To Sell or Not To Sell

After deliberating over this issue for a while now. I have finally come to a conclusion.
Everyone who made huge on bitcoin right now, at their early backers. They trusted in the technology, they trusted the community and the developers working on it. And I for one really believe in Decred and the hard work the developers are putting into it. So, I have decided to keep all my coins as it is, and not sell it.
Even if Bitcoin hits $10K, which looks highly possible the way things are heading. Its currently at $7K and Decred is at around 0.0036 which is around $28. But I firmly believe in the Decred project, so rather than dumping it and buying it back lower or dumping and keeping bitcoins. I think I will just keep them the way they are. Cause the bulls will come to Decred, and when it does, it will be Glorious.

Ps. Keep Calm, Lightning Network is coming to Decred!!

What is The DAO?

A distributed organization with no single leader that could theoretically exist so long as there’s an Internet connection was launched last month, and has since then left many observers and Ethereum community members feeling optimistic – if not a bit confused – about what exactly was created. 

'The DAO', as it’s called, takes its name from the description for a new type of entity: a distributed autonomous organization. Intended to act as a vehicle for supporting Ethereum-related projects, The DAO has garnered over $110m worth of ethers (ETH) – the digital token of the Ethereum network – from investors. They are on road to become the largest crowd-funded project in history!!! At this moment they are 2nd in position. Go to daohub.org for the latest stats!

But what does The DAO do exactly? Think of it as a hub that disperses ETH to other startups and projects. Backers of The DAO receive voting rights by means of a digital token, which can be used to help determine the future direction of the organization and which projects will actually get funded following a voting period.

Participants stand to receive possible dividends, including ether, in return for supporting the project.

Yet, there are outstanding questions about the exact origins of The DAO as it exists in the wild today. Interviews with those involved in the creation of the code underlying The DAO's smart contract paint a complex network of relationships.

Christoph Jentzsch, co-founder and CTO of Slock.it, which created the open-source DAO framework at the core of The DAO, told CoinDesk:

"We actually don’t know who started it. Of course we can see the address on the blockchain but we don’t know who owns the address. The only way to speak with the DAO is to make a proposal and vote."

What is the DAO?

It's likely best to think of The DAO — which is sometimes also referred to as The DAO Hub — as a tightly packed collection of smart contracts written on the Ethereum blockchain.

Taken collectively, the smart contracts amount to a series of by-laws and other founding documents that determine how its constituency — anyone around the world who has bought DAO tokens with ethers — votes on decisions, allocates resources and in theory, creates a wide-range of possible returns.

Unlike a traditional company that has a designated managerial structure, The DAO operates through collective voting, and is owned by everyone who's purchased a DAO token. On top of that structure is a group of so-called Curators that can be elected or removed by DAO token holders. The current list of Curators include a number of well-connected Ethereum contributors including inventor Vitalik Buterin.

The DAO’s objective is to support sharing economy projects delivered by "contractors" by allocating ETH raised during its creation phase. The project has currently raised $51.1m worth of ETH by selling tokens — or voting rights — in exchange for ETH or other returns.

At the time of publication, two companies are listed on the DAO site as potential contractors. Slock.it, which in addition to creating the DAO framework aims to produce connected devices using the Etherem network, and Mobotiq, a French organization that plans to build a network of shared electric vehicles.

The terms of the potential projects are not yet public.

While the code created by Slock.it and published to Github has been implemented in the past, The DAO is unique, according to Jentzsch, who was previously the lead tester at Ethereum.

"There are a lot of DAOs that are deployed," said  Jentzsch. "But only one that’s taken off, which we said that is the one we will make a proposal to."

Doing business with a DAO

Another aspect of how The DAO operates relates to how the organization connects with the traditional economy, particularly on the regulatory front.

A newly established company, DAO.Link, is intended to serve as a bridge between blockchain-based DAOs and the real world, where contractors need to pay taxes and adhere to regulatory requirements in their respective jurisdictions.

While companies working with the The DAO or any distributed autonomous organization might in the future prove perfectly comfortable doing business exclusively in digital currencies, any individual or business that wishes to send corporate invoices and purchase orders or pay taxes won’t likely be able to attribute those funds to "the Ethereum blockchain" any time soon.

Ultimately, DAO.Link provides a physical address through which outside companies can interact with DAOs, according to Stephen Tual, founder and chief operating officer of Slock.it.

Currently transitioning from being a German UG to a GMBH, Slock.it partnered with Neuchatel-based digital currency exchange Bity SA to co-found DAO.Link.

DAO.Link was incorporated as a SARL, the Swiss version of an LTD, also in Neuchatel, a region of Switzerland increasingly known for its digital currency-friendly policies.

Bity co-founder Alexis Roussel explained to CoinDesk:

"The main legal questions which DAO.Link can answer is that in Switzerland you don’t need to specify the person in front of you that you want to make a contract with. You only need to show it’s valid that the person on the other side is capable of making a decision."

Thanks to the voting methodology built into The DAO’s infrastructure, "The DAO itself has the ability to make a decision," Roussel added. As a result, the address on an invoice from Slock.it — which is also a customer of DAO.Link — will be DAO.Link’s address.

At that point in the transaction, it’s up to the contractor to declare or not declare the earnings or other transactions as he or she sees fit.

"It makes it a lot easier for a large company to cross the bridge, if you will, between the crazy world of blockchain that a lot of people don’t really understand yet and the brick and mortar world where they operate daily," Tual said.

As part of the formation of DAO.Link, which is co-owned by Slock.it and Bity, Slock.it CEO Simon Jentzch – brother of Christoph Jentzch – joined DAO.Link as its president. Roussel joined as a board member, and both Tual and Gian Bochsler of Bity serve as member advisors.

Slock.it and Bity each invested 10,000 Swiss Francs in DAO.Link, according to Roussel.

Though Bity itself is audited by Dutch accounting giant KPMG, which has recently been conducting its own blockchain research, Roussel says he is uncertain if they will also audit DAO.Link since his firm only owns half a stake.

Raising capital

But Bity’s involvement with The DAO goes beyond partnering with Slock.it. Bity is also offering a simple smart contract whereby visitors to its site can purchase DAO tokens with ETH via a proxy address. The ETH is sent to The DAO from Bity’s Ethereum address, with the third-party’s address in the data field.

"You will see many transactions from The DAO account that come from us," said Roussel, who previously worked at for German utility firm RWE. "But the address stuff in the data field will be different. If you want to see who owns the token you have to look in the data field."

In addition to providing a proxy method to acquire tokens from The DAO, Bity, via the DAO.Linkservice, also hosts the main website for The DAO.

"We’re paying for the server and the domain name," said Roussel. The domain itself however, is registered to a PO Box in Panama. In interview, both Tual and Jentzsch said they do not know the actual identity of the domain owner, other than the owner is "a member of the community".

During the creation phase of The DAO, some have raised questions about whether those involved with prospective seekers of funding were purchasing tokens – a move that could create a conflict of interest if they end up voting for their own proposal.

In interview with CoinDesk, Jentzsch said he doesn't own any tokens from The DAO. Roussel said he doesn't own any either, but that he intends to purchase some before the price goes up later this week. He added that some members his team have invested.

As for Tual, he said that as a company Slock.it only holds "what's necessary" to make a proposal, or 10^-16 tokens, far less than one US cent, but that employees are free to invest as they see fit.

Regulatory concerns

In a regulatory context, what is The DAO exactly?

From one angle, The DAO seems to resemble a venture capital firm and its token holders appear to be investors. And while returns could, in theory, include ETH, Jentzsch told CoinDesk that the tokens do not represent equity and, for legal reasons, they do not explicitly identify the organization as a venture capital firm or a traditional company.

"It's an organization that is helping products by giving them ether and of course they want returns," said Jentzsch. "It could be a return on ether, but it could be free services or many other business models."

For the time being, Tual believes that, in the same way that Ethereum was able to pre-sell tokens in Switzerland’s Zug Canton, the network of companies utilizing DAO.Link will be able to do business from the Neuchatel Canton.

But he acknowledged in interview that regulators "don’t understand [The DAO], and I don’t think they will understand it for a while."

Tual went on to say:

"Somebody asked me that the other day: do you think it’s more for small companies or big companies. Well, I would say it’s definitely for a startup because these are the guys with the balls to try something new."

Those at Slock.it estimate that the decentralized "sharing economy" they envision will take 30 years or more to fully implement. Speaking to CoinDesk, Jentzsch said he's hopeful for the future of The DAO.

"We have always said that we want to build the universal sharing network," he said. "We hope that this DAO will become the core of the sharing network that will decentralize the sharing economy."

You can buy DAO easily using Poloniex or Bittrex by trading your Ethereum there!

How To Mine Decred in the Pool using NVIDIA GPUs (ccminer)

To mine Decred, first go join a pool. In this tutorial we will use Suprnova Pool. Please visit the page Decred PoW Charts to see the full list of availiable proof-of-work pools and their stats.


Create a new account using your email, and set up your new worker at My Account > My Workers.


To create a new worker, go to "Add new worker" and fill in the blanks. Your worker name and password will be whatever you want. (e.g. Worker name is Test, and password is 4321. Including the login name as RyanBC, the worker login would be RyanBC.Test"


Then download the nVidia GPU miner, also known as ccminer. You will need 7-zip or WinRAR to extract the files. (Any program which extracts files will do)


Then create a new folder on your desktop. Extract the files from the downloaded 7z file to the newly created folder. Edit the RUN-DCR.cmd file inside the folder by right clicking it and selecting "Edit".


You will see something like this:

Change "tpruvot" to your Suprnova login username, and "win" to your worker name. Change "x" to your worker password.


For example, the sample login name is RyanBC, worker name is Test, and password is 4321, so it will look something like this:


Now you should be ready to start mining with your nVidia graphics card. As long as you leave the miner open, you will be mining non-stop. (Unless you close the miner)


See the full tutorial in this video:

Understanding the Value of the Decred (DCR) System

By now most people understand the concept of a distributed ledger and understand software is continually updated to support that process for all cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Etherium (ETH) and Decred (DCR). If you would like to brush up that basic understanding start with a one page primer at bitcoin.org before continuing to read.

Many people who have followed Bitcoin (BTC) for some time have seen the potential for the damaging impact of failed decision making in the development community. If you are not familiar with this, perhapsreading from one of the Bitcoin (BTC) developers Mike Hearn (who has one of the more extreme views) will help you understand how negative a failed decision making process and a lack of real scalable development support is.

Briefly Mike's explanations why Bitcoin network has failed is because the community has failed. What was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked “systemically important institutions” and “too big to fail” has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people. Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse. The mechanisms that should have prevented this outcome have broken down, and as a result there’s no longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be better than the existing financial system.
How is Decred (DCR) different?

Unlike other currencies, Decred has a transparent process of rewarding developers for their contribution built into the mining process. When blocks rewards are granted, developers receive 10%, and those mining receive 90%. As the value scales, so does the development payout, ensuring resources are appropriately scaled.

Secondly, and equally as important, the payout to mining (unlike other currencies) is split between "Proof of Work" and "Proof of Stake" mining. Proof of Work (PoW) mining is the typical mining which processes transactions and ensures the security of the distributed ledger.

Proof of Stake (PoS) is a new addition which gives a voice to those who use/hold the currency Decred (DCR). Each time a block was found, 5 Decred (DCR) users who participating in voting (PoS-mining) are selected at random to cast a vote and they receive 30% of the block reward for doing so (6% each). To buy a ticket for voting they should lock their coins (current PoS ticket price) for quite long time (in average 28 days, but up to 5 months, when they cannot use or spend amount locked for PoS tickets).

In addition to the reward, these users also have the option of voting Yes or No if there is a decision to be made (accept software change, etc...). These PoS miners vote always for a previous block, and if it receive 3 / 5 "No" votes, nobody except PoS-miners receive reward and block will be removed from blockchain.

So again, how is Decred (DCR) different?

Bitcoin (BTC) first brought us a distributed ledger.

Decred (DCR) also has a distributed ledger, but additionally has brought us:

A distributed system of approving/denying changes and PoW mining rewards through PoS mining.

A distributed system of rewarding the development team to ensure resources are available to further the project decision making system. This budget is using to pay community members for the development of new resources and features for Decred Software. See the list of "Requests for Proposals" and payments on official forum.

Making Profit with Decred - Noob Friendly

In this guide I will show you how to make money with Decred. I will explain how to use the official Proof of Stake (PoS) pool. If you are a total newcomer you will have to learn a lot of new things. No worries, most of your questions will be answered in the Links and Forum Discussions that I will refer to. In case you have any specific questions, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter. Let's get started!

Background

Decred uses a hybrid PoW/PoS system. The process of creating blockchain consensus is thus balanced between miners and stakeholders. Miners 'mine' to validate blocks, and stakeholders 'vote' to decide if the block is indeed valid. Both miners and stakeholders can count on a reward. Even users with small amounts of coins will be able to participate in creating consensus by joining PoS pools. For a detailed explanation of how the hybrid PoW/PoS system of Decred works, check out: http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/02/pow-pos-whats-going-on.html


Rationale

How do we make profit? We will invest our DCR funds in the PoS process by joining a PoS pool. The PoS process is designed as a lottery with a guaranteed reward. How do we invest? By buying lottery tickets. The tickets will grant us voting rights via the PoS pool. Each time one of our tickets is called to vote on a block, we will obtain a reward after the vote is confirmed. The pool is always online, so we will never miss a vote. It is designed in a way that both you and the pool have voting rights, so you can leave your wallet online as a backup to the pool if you want.

The best pool to start stake mining Decred for now is: https://dcrstakes.com


Getting Started

The first step is to get yourself some DCR funds. If you don't have any coins (or stake) yet, please follow this blog post on how to obtain DCR. If you have a wallet with funds available, write down your seed and let's get started with setting up a desktop wallet. The command line interface is very easy once you've used it. These guides explains everything in great detail:
http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/02/how-to-start-mining-decred.html
http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/04/decred-basic-commands-with-explaination.html

IMPORTANT! Download the latest software: https://github.com/decred/decred-release/releases


Follow steps of the how-to-start-mining guide to set up your wallet by importing your seed. After unpacking the software in a map dedicated to Decred, hold Shift and Rightclick in that map to open a new command line window. The commands that you will need are listed below (my comments between brackets). Hit enter after each line.


In command window #1:
dcrd -u [...] -P [...]
(choose username and password for the dcrdaemon)
Example: dcrd -u noahdcrd -P mynewpass1@

Your deamon should now start downloading the Decred blockchain.

IMPORTANT! Let the blockchain sync completely before moving to the next step. For the most recent block height you can check: https://mainnet.decred.org/


In command window #2:
dcrwallet --create

- The wallet will ask you to input a private passphrase for your wallet. While entering, the passphrase will look blank, but actually you are typing (remember this). Confirm by typing it again.
- Now, it will ask you if you want to add an additional encryption layer for public data. Say 'yes', type the public passphrase and confirm by typing again (it will look blank as well).
- Next, when it asks if you have an existing wallet seed, enter 'yes' and type the 33-word text carefully (without any mistakes or CasE eRrOrs).
It should now say: The wallet is successfully created.


In command window #2:
dcrwallet -u [...] -P [...] --walletpass [publicpassphrase] --dcrdusername=[user] --dcrdpassword=[pass]
(choose a user and pass for the wallet, and fill out the other data)
Example: dcrwallet -u noahwallet -P mynewpass2# --walletpass mypubpassphra --dcrdusername=noahdcrd --dcrdpassword=mynewpass1@

Your wallet should now start processing the Decred blockchain.


In command window #3:
dcrctl -u [user] -P [pass] --wallet getbalance
(to check if your wallet funds are correct)
Example: dcrctl -u noahwallet -P mynewpass2# --wallet getbalance

Congratulations, you are ready to start! Keep your command windows running as we proceed.


The PoS pool

Now, we need to sign up for the PoS pool. Go to the website and create an account. If you have registered at the stake pool, it will tell you to generate a public key address. Follow the steps as displayed. The commands that you'll need are listed below. From now on you should stop using your web wallet, to prevent syncing problems between web and desktop wallets.


In command window #3:


dcrctl -u [user] -P [pass] --wallet getnewaddress
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet validateaddress [yournewdaddress]

If you copy and paste the 'pubkeyaddr' into the form on the website, it will generate a P2SH address that you can use to purchase tickets via the PoS pool. Go to the Tickets tab and follow the instructions. The pool has generated a script that you will need to import.


In command window #3:
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet walletpassphrase [privatepassphrase] 1800
(this unlocks your wallet for 1800 seconds, or 0.5 hour ; set it to 0 to keep it unlocked indefinately).
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet importscript [yourRedeemScript]

Once your script has been successfully imported, you are ready to go!


Buying tickets

Personally, I always buy my tickets manually. This allows me to have full control over my spending. This command allows you to buy tickets and transfer it to your account in the PoS pool.


In command window #3:
dcrctl -u [u] -P [p] --wallet purchaseticket "default" [maxTicketPrice] [minConfirmation] [P2SHAddress]
Example: dcrctl -u noahwallet -P mynewpass2# --wallet purchaseticket "default" 20 1 Dcsgdz1randomexampleaddressVrzf

In the example we are buying a ticket for maximum 20 DCR. The transaction has to be confirmed by exactly one block before we can make a new transaction or buy a new ticket. During this time your funds will be send to a change address that you control. The ticket price will then be send to the pool address, and the remainder of your funds will be transferred back. During this time, you won't be able to buy new tickets, as you have no spendable balance. After the block is confirmed and your balance is back, you can use it again to purchase new tickets. Determine the best price to buy by checking the current, average, and estimated price here: https://dcrstakes.com/price


Final remarks

It is good to know that this pool absolutely cannot control your funds. It does not have your private keys, so there is no possibility. By using the PoS pool, you don't need to keep you wallet up and running after you've bought the tickets: the pool will vote on your behalf and your reward will be transferred automatically. In the future there will be more PoS pools, operated by community members. This way Decred will remain a truly Decentralised cryptocurrency.

Some useful forum threads that will help to answer many of your further questions:
http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/04/1.html

http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/04/decred-basic-commands-with-explaination.html

http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/03/decred-solo-stake-mining-guide-useful.html

http://cryptotales.blogspot.in/2016/02/auto-login-script-to-connect-to.html

Decred - Proof of Stake mining [FAQ]

1. How do I start PoS mining?

Answer - Check This Out!

2. What hardware do I need to PoS mine?

Answer - The hardware doesnt really matter. You can use a laptop, desktop, VPS, Amazon AWS or even a Raspberry Pi 2 or other newer SoC. It simply needs to be online and connected to the internet 24x7x365. If your PoS wallet is unable to reach the internet you will miss calls to stake vote, your ticket will be revoked and you will not get the stake vote reward.

3. How much DCR do I get for PoS voting / mining?

Answer - The current PoS reward is 1.853DCR per vote. The reward will change over time. It will slowly get lower and lower. As of 13MAR16, block 10035, the total block reward is 30.88. This is broken down into 60% PoW reward, 18.532DCR. 30% PoS reward, 1.853DCR X 5 votes or 9.265DCR and 10% developer funds reward 3.088DCR.

3.1 How long does it take to get the PoS reward?

Answer - It takes 256 blocks (~1 day) for your stake reward to be returned and spendable.

4. How much does a stake ticket cost?

Answer - The price changes every 144 blocks. The amount of sstx purchased in the 144 blocks between price changes influences sstx price moreso than the target 40960 pool number. 144 blocks * 5 votes/block = 720. If less than 720 sstx are purchased in 144 blocks then the overall direction is down in price. Even if the total amount of sstx is still above the target 40960 sstx in the pool. If the amount of sstx tickets is <720 then the sstx price goes up. If there are more or less than 40960 stakes in the pool this will also affect the price direction of movement. Currently at block 10035 13MAR16 1 stake vote ticket requires you pledge or lock 14.39DCR. Previous stake ticket costs have been in the range of 5DCR-30DCR based on demand as above. The average sstx price at this time is 9dcr.

4. Do I get my stake back or do I lose it?

Answer - Buying a stake vote is really not the correct term. What you are really doing is pledging an amount of DCR to have the right to vote. There are 3 outcomes after you purchase a stake ticket. 1 - Your ticket is voted. You get your stake pledge 14.39DCR + reward 1.853DCR currently. 2.Your stake vote is called and you miss the vote. Your ticket is revoked. Your stake pledge 14.39DCR currently is returned. No reward given. 3.Your ticket is not voted for 142 days(approximately) and your stake pledge is returned at the end of 142 days. No reward given.

5. How often does the stake ticket price adjust or change?

Answer - The stake ticket price or pledge adjusts every 144 blocks or about 12 hours.

6. How much DCR do I need to PoS?

Answer - You can start with any amount as long as you have enough to purchase a stake vote ticket. How much is that? It changes. It can be anywhere from 2DCR to 1000DCR. Currently 13MAR16 at block 10035 a stake vote costs 14.39DCR and will return 1.853DCR reward. Knowing that it will probably take 28 days to get the stake pledge and the reward back you can calculate how much you want to vote each day. For example - 2 votes per day X 28 days = 56 stake tickets * 14.39 = 805DCR. The 56 votes will return 107.3DCR reward after about 28 days.

7. What are the commands to PoS?

Answer - There are quite a few commands related to PoS. We have started to flesh them out here:
Useful PoS commands

7.1 How can I connect DCRD to more nodes?

Answer - add the --maxpeers=X switch to your dcrd config or at start. 1-? is the range for X. Why would I want to do this? Outbound connections are HARD SET to 8. This has been extensively tested to be the ideal amount and cannot be changed. Inbound connections are good for the network. If you are running a public node you can up the amount of allowed inbound connections to whatever your system will handle. The default max is 125. You can raise it higher if you like but do not adjust lower. This can result in missed tickets as your hop count, in effect latency, increases. There are also bandwidth considerations. If you pay for data $/per MB raising this can increase the data you use.
For a concrete example, assume that at some point in the future there are a million nodes on the network. You would be able to reach any given node on the network with a maximum of ceil(log8(1000000)) = 7 hops. In practice, it works out to be even less than that on average because there are inbound nodes too which are notified and thus the net effect is that it raises the base of the logarithm which of course in turn reduces the hops.

8. How do I know if I have voted?

Answer - You will see something like this in your dcrwallet screen:

13:28:35 2016-01-25 [INF] WLLT: Voted on block 0034dafbc7969fd5f1c5a3cbbf1ddd48ec78109d103457b3bb5b101c71db3657 (height 4143) using ticket 2030e3978322bac2466146ccf955c32afd86ccf85f1356ab54cd091513b6f9ad (vote hash: cb8c498f1c6fb9255076655b21394733a4d1f078687c751860d8dd93e7599d57)

You can also see current tickets held by using the getstakeinfo command.


dcrctl -u -P --wallet getstakeinfo
{
"poolsize": 41768,
"difficulty": 8.49962772,
"allmempooltix": 6,
"ownmempooltix": 0,
"immature": 6,
"live": 241,
"proportionlive": 0.005769967439187895,
"voted": 151, <--Total number of votes you have cast
"totalsubsidy": 280.91069628, <-- Total reward subsidy you have received for votes
"missed": 12,
"proportionmissed": 0.0002872187649593107,
"revoked": 12
}


9. How do I know if I bought a stake vote ticket?

Answer - You will see something like this in your dcrwallet screen:

14:51:09 2016-03-13 [INF] TMGR: Inserting unconfirmed transaction b06cfe0a13f6e62c095b71308d310a6a63c18ad52f9b6650a3d6e469a4894699
14:51:09 2016-03-13 [INF] WLLT: Successfully sent SStx purchase transaction b06cfe0a13f6e62c095b71308d310a6a63c18ad52f9b6650a3d6e469a4894699

You can also see how many stake tickets you currently have by using the getstakeinfo command.


dcrctl -u -P --wallet getstakeinfo
{
"poolsize": 41768,
"difficulty": 8.49962772, <-- Current stake ticket price
"allmempooltix": 6, <-- All tickets waiting to be included in next block
"ownmempooltix": 0, <--Your tickets waiting to be included in next block
"immature": 6, <--Purchased tickets not ready to vote yet.
"live": 241, <--Tickets waiting to vote
"proportionlive": 0.005769967439187895, <--Your % of tickets in PoS (poolsize: 41768 above) % chance to vote? .576%
"voted": 151,
"totalsubsidy": 280.91069628,
"missed": 12,
"proportionmissed": 0.0002872187649593107,
"revoked": 12
}


10. Should I raise my txfee to buy stake votes faster?

Answer - See also #14. This is more opinion than fact so here goes - No you should not. You have 144 blocks to purchase a stake vote before the next change. Several thousand stake votes( up to 2880 stakes I think?) can be purchased in that amount of blocks. The only reason to adjust your txfee higher would be to make sure your stake purchase gets put in to the last few blocks before an adjustment is made. To adjust your txfee above .5 or even .025 right after a stake price adjustment is wasting DCR.

11. How do I know if I have a missed / revoked ticket?

Answer - You will see something like this is your dcrwallet screen:

19:24:56 2016-02-24 [INF] WLLT: Voted on block 0000000000000624cd8375a6889a3ef2eda66b58d29029f2d69111cd687102c2 (height 5001) using ticket c20113ebc1a7c1bf875a60fcdd71baf86c007c8603cf34cac33377badbdf7420 (vote hash: acad50383933a19d63d6e3a5d6c8f05e45e6b934b299a934c3795c8b5cff7e9f)
19:25:51 2016-02-24 [INF] WLLT: Connecting block 0000000000001226676a67f5ccbf1ba8f063e1a4016e50e5822934acb0f7f78f, height 5002
19:25:54 2016-02-24 [INF] WLLT: Revoked missed ticket c20113ebc1a7c1bf875a60fcdd71baf86c007c8603cf34cac33377badbdf7420 (tx hash: 003f7c81c92bbc2a4999b783c6188e76dbf6c359e6b1c19b212a55006d216cc8)

You can also use the getstakeinfo command.


dcrctl -u -P --wallet getstakeinfo
{
"poolsize": 41768,
"difficulty": 8.49962772,
"allmempooltix": 6,
"ownmempooltix": 0,
"immature": 6,
"live": 241,
"proportionlive": 0.005769967439187895,
"voted": 151,
"totalsubsidy": 280.91069628,
"missed": 12, <-- Total votes you missed
"proportionmissed": 0.0002872187649593107, <-- Total % of overall(?) voted tickets you missed
"revoked": 12 <-- Total votes you had revoked
}


12. Why does my missed and revoke vote count not match. How do I fix?

Answer - Why? Something is out of sync. It happens. Use the command rebroadcastmissed. It will not post any output. After running it rerun getstakeinfo and missed / revoked should sync up.

dcrctl -u -P --wallet rebroadcastmissed


13.My DCR balances for all, locked, spend dont match/cant use spend and other account balance issues.

Answer - I have found that most of these issues can be resolved buy A)restarting DCRD then B)restarting DCRWALLET with the --prunetickets --reuseaddresses flags set.
You can also try running the consolidate command below. Beware this will cost you some DCR as it creates transactions. Typically not more than a few transaction fees. The last time I did it cost 1.2dcr and consolidated about 25 transactions. This should help clear up any stuck funds where you dont have enough to purchase any sstx.


dcrctl -u "dcrwallet_username" -P "dcrwallet_password" --wallet consolidate 99999 default

After this completes you should see a transaction insert(if any were needed) and also something similar to 'Successfully consolidated funds' along with a transaction ID you can check at https://mainnet.decred.org to see what actually happened and exactly how much it cost.

14.What should I set my txfee to? How many tickets are available during each period between changes? How does my txfee amount influence ticket buys?

Answer - See also #10. There are 20 slots per block to insert/buy a stake ticket(sstx). If there are more than 20 pending sstx in the mempool it will take mulitple blocks to clear the mempool. Stake ticket purchases are also placed in order of txfee. For example - There are 30 tickets in the mempool all with txfee of .025, requiring 2 blocks to complete. Block 1 with 20 sstx, block 2 with 10 sstx. You insert/buy another sstx into the mempool with a txfee of .026 before block 1 is processed. Your sstx now goes to the front of the line and is processed in block 1. Block 2 will now have 11 sstx in it. But your sstx was placed at the front of the line because it had a higher txfee. The reverse is also true. If you do not specify a high enough txfee your sstx will keep getting pushed to the end of the line. This is no big deal when there are 2800 slots available until the next sstx price change. It is a big deal when there are only a few blocks left, maybe 60-80 slots and there are 200 sstx in the mempool. If the sstx price goes from say 10 to 15 then those who had lower txfees set will not get sstx at 10 because they kept getting pushed back to the end of the line.

Now that this has been clearly (I hope) explained lets not go crazy and start doing .5 txfees! .01 to maybe .075 should be more than enough to get everyone in that wants in. Remember you have 144 blocks or 2880 slots over the next 12 hours to get your sstx. You dont have to have them in right after the price change. You have time, relax. Have a beer. We have yet to see all 2880 slots filled. There is room for everyone so far.

How to buy decred with USD or EUR ?

Many people ask how they can buy Decred (DCR) with fiat money, either USD or Euro.

TL;DR

You cannot safely buy dcr with USD or EUR, but it is very easy to do through bitcoin: USD, EUR -> bitcoin -> decred.

In this guide I describe fast and safe way to do this.
Why exchanges don't deal with USD-DCR pair

It's quite expensive and problematic process to open and run an exchange for trading crypto coins for USD, EUR or any fiat money. First, because you will be a target for fraud, since you provide crypto cash in exchange for dubious funds that can be easily charged back, like credit cards, Paypal and often even wire transfers.

Second, whenever you handle government/fiat money you need licenses and you must comply to hundreds of regulations like Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC). Before you will earn a single dollar you have to spend millions on a legal team and licenses and you will have a hard time finding a bank that will do business with you. Nobody will go into that PITA except for a crypto coin with a huge market cap like Bitcoin.
So, how can you buy it

Don't worry, there is a quite simple and secure enough way to buy decred with bitcoins. You can find plenty of exchanges where you can buy Bitcoin with USD and EUR and a few exchanges where you can buy Decred with Bitcoin. In this guide we will use two biggest and trustable:
Coinbase to buy Bitcoins: https://www.coinbase.com/
Bittrex to buy Decred: https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-DCR
First step: buy Bitcoins on Coinbase

First of all check on this page that Coinbase is availiable in your country: https://www.coinbase.com/global
If it's not, you will not be able to buy or sell bitcoins, so you should try some other big exchange as:
www.kraken.com
www.bitstamp.net
www.btc-e.com
www.cryptsy.com

There is two possible ways to make a deposit to Coinbase:
credit cart: max 100$ / 24 hours, fee is 3%
wire transfer: max 3000$ / 24 hours, fee is 1%

In this guide I will describe "wire transfer" because it has lower fees and allow you to buy more bitcoins in one day. Deposit with credit card is easy as just a few clicks.

So, register at Coinbase, confirm your email and phone number (you will use it also for 2-steps authentication). Before you can make deposit, you need to verify your identity. For this you need either Passport, driver license or other ID card with photo and web camerawhich you can use to take pictures of your document. Usually verification takes only 2-5 minutes, but maybe you'll need few attempts if text on photo will be not readable.

Now you can make a deposit using both credit card and wire transfers. Do not forget to add your reference code (you will see it in red color in payment credentials) to comment of your transfer. Coinbase will use this code to identify you and process your deposit. Now you have just to wait 1-2 business days, you will receive email notification.

When your money will be enrolled just go herehttps://www.coinbase.com/buys and buy your bitcoins, that's easy as 1 click.
Second step: buy Decred on Bittrex

Register at Bittrex and go to your wallet https://bittrex.com/Balance. Press + button in the Bitcoin row and generate new Bitcoin address for a deposit. It is unique address generated only for your account, so all payments to this address will be enrolled to your Bittrex account.

Now go to your account at Coinbase and just send your bitcoins to the address generated at Bittrex account. Now you just need to wait for 3 confirmations (it can take up to few hours, but usually faster), you can track how is it going in your Bittrex account "Pending Deposits" section.

Congratulation, now you can buy Decred on Bittrex exchange:https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-DCR

When you'll buy decred, I suggest you to withdraw it to your local wallet. Make sure that only you have access to your wallet Seed.

If you have any problems or questions, feel free to leave comment bellow.