Premine

When the Decred blockchain launched, a premine was conducted, in which 8% of the total supply of 21 million coins (1.68 million coins) were distributed. Half (4%) went to Company 0 and its developers to compensate them for work already completed (i.e. “bring up costs”). The other half (4%) was airdropped evenly across a list of airdrop participants. Details of the development costs and airdrop are outlined below.

Full details of the premine transaction can be viewed on the block explorer.

Bring up costs

In total, 840,000 coins (50% of premine, 4% of total Decred supply), were distributed to Company 0 and its developers as compensation for initial development, which was funded out of pocket.

Total development costs paid by Company 0 to developers totaled approximately $300,000. An additional $115,000 was allocated for unpaid work and individual purchases made by developers, bringing total bring-up costs to roughly $415,000. Company 0 felt that the most equitable way to handle compensation for these expenses was to perform a small premine as part of the project launch. This model is unusual in that no developer received any amount of coins for free; all coins owned by developers were either purchased at a rate of $0.49 per coin from their own pockets or exchanged for work performed at the same rate. Coins held by Company 0 were used to fund its ongoing work on open source projects, such as Decred and btcsuite.

When Decred launched in February 2016, the developers and project members committed to not trade any of their premined DCR for 12 months and Company 0 committed to not trade any for 24 months. These coins were used to purchase Proof-of-Stake (PoS) tickets, with the intention of making the Decred network harder to attack during its infancy. As community participation in PoS has increased, the amount of tickets purchased using premined DCR has reduced proportionally.

Airdrop

Warning

Decred is not currently running an airdrop! Offers to airdrop DCR are likely scams. The only airdrop Decred has ever conducted was at launch, as described below.

In total, 840,000 coins (50% of premine, 4% of total Decred supply), were distributed evenly across a list of airdrop participants.

Sign-up for the airdrop opened with a public announcement on December 15th, 2015 and closed on January 18th, 2016. Not all participants who signed up were selected to participate in the airdrop - Decred is fundamentally about technological progress, so the airdrop targeted individuals that have made contributions towards advancing technology in its various forms. There were also a large number of fraudulent sign-ups, which were carefully identified and dealt with.

When the airdrop concluded, 282.63795424 DCR was awarded to 2,972 participants.

Giving away these coins in an airdrop accomplished several things for the project: enlarging the Decred network, further helping to decentralize the distribution of coins, and getting coins into the hands of people who are interested in participating in the project. These coins were given away unconditionally and there was zero expectation of Decred receiving anything from the participants in return for these coins.

Airdrop Application and Review Process

Step 1: Registration

Individuals could register their interest in participating in the airdrop by completing an online form which opened on December 15th, 2015 and closed on January 18th, 2016. The form required applicants to provide an email address, a link to an online personal profile, and a description of why the participant was interested in Decred or how they intended to contribute to the project. This form was submitted 8,793 times, with submissions coming from 99 different countries.

The applications included duplicates, spam and scammers. The applications were reviewed and problematic entries were disqualified from the process. The process of evaluation involved a combination of:

Checking each entry individually for an online presence
Asking the participant directly for more information where the evaluator was unsure about the entry, and/or
Having a discussion with the participant about their interests, history, and proposed future contributions to the project

Checks were also included to investigate similarity in IP addresses and e-mail addresses across entries - this process was performed both manually and using automation.

Step 2: Confirm Decred Address

Successful applicants from step 1 were sent an email providing instructions on how to download Decred binaries, generate an address, and submit the address through a web form to be included in the airdrop. Address submission closed on January 25th, and in total 3,244 addresses were submitted to the airdrop database.

Once all of the addresses were received, a final inspection was performed on the data provided by each candidate airdrop participant. This final and intensive review process worked as follows:

The sign-up information of each participant was compared with their confirmation information - not only for each user, but also for each user against all other users.
The process involved comparison of IP addresses, timestamps, and user agents at both the airdrop sign-up phase and the confirmation phase.

After the final review was completed, 2,972 addresses were included in the airdrop.

Premine

Bring up costs

Airdrop

Airdrop Application and Review Process

Step 1: Registration

Step 2: Confirm Decred Address

Further Reading

Premine Commitments

Airdrop Status Updates