C. Background
The cryptocurrency industry has indeed fulfilled its promises regarding the store of value and privacy of digital assets. However, like any evolving technology, it also grapples with several challenges that modern blockchains must address:
- Proof-of-Work is not adequate for fast and low-cost transactions;
- Current transaction times take minutes and in the worst case, hours. For real-time purchases, this is simply inadequate for a viable system;
- Security issues are major concerns in the industry. The latest report reveals that losses from 160 hacks to crypto projects amounted to about 1.7 billion US dollars in 2023, according to Cointelegraph;
- New developments have been made in BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) and other security solutions, however, alternative consensus mechanisms already achieve comparable or even superior BFT consensus outcomes for specific use cases;
- Blockchains that want to provide themselves and the hosted projects with highly customizable on-chain logics need to support smart contracts;
- Big coin holders are often not involved as guardians of the network and are not incentivized to act as such;
- On-chain governance is aligning the values of participants in the networks;
- Many blockchain systems miss a true sustainable coin economic setup ready for centuries. A truly sustainable ecosystem needs to be built around a limited resource, developed in a way that the resource can be “recycled” or is “renewable” (e.g. grows new at the same speed as it’s used up);
- Competitive consensus blockchains have limitations on minimum block times and instant finality of transactions;
- Interoperability is becoming important as the industry matures and consolidates around a shared mission to create financial inclusion worldwide.
The DMD Diamond team has always been committed to maintaining the best technology and ensuring that the coin holders are protected and that the DMD chain gains momentum and utility in the industry. As such, the current implementation addresses these opportunities and challenges.
The DMD Diamond coin was created in mid-2013 during an explosion of new coin creation, based on forks of Bitcoin. DMD diamond coin launched as a limited-supply Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) coin, which already represented an advantage over the competition, but at the time the code for staking wasn’t mature. Despite the initial enthusiasm for the coin, the original creator of DMD disappeared several months after the creation of the coin, which theoretically could have ended badly with the community being disgruntled by the sudden departure of the developer leaving unresolved software issues behind.
Instead, a small community convened, discussing the future and the potential on the Bitcointalk forum. The name of the coin appealed to people, as well as the implicit scarcity and the fairness of the limited coin issue. As a result, a small team of developers and enthusiasts got together to maintain and evolve the code and adjust the vision for the coin, and in April 2014, with the release of DMDv2, the coin’s staking algorithm was made stable and worthwhile for network participants.
The survival of the coin and the willingness of a community of enthusiasts to continue to support this project made DMD stand out from other coins. Such disappearances and pump-and-dump schemes were common — the difference was that the community rallied around the coin and continued to uphold the value of the coin. At that time, smart contracts were not yet available — however, there was an ideological underpinning to the release of currency that was supported by regular people seeking financial independence and security from the authorities and debt-backed government money systems.
Sprouting from the community was a group of leaders and developers who were determined to create a sustainable blockchain, stewarded by people who are willing to continue to take responsibility for the project over the long haul, without compromise. The team of stewards of DMD Diamond was determined to create a store of value that they themselves felt comfortable holding. The name Diamond represents scarcity, unshakable strength, and value.
With hard work and a dedicated community, DMD Diamond remained in the top 100 coins on Coinmarketcap throughout boom and bust cycles until only recently. Naturally, the technology was superior to Bitcoin because of the later development and the vision has continued to attract a group of faithful holders who recognize the scarcity of the coin and the integrity of the team as essential for the long-term health of the project.
The strength of DMD Diamond is not only its vision and principles but the devotion to constant evolution. Technology evolves quickly, but most blockchains are designed in ways that are doomed to be stuck with their initial technological decisions, constraining them in ways that prevent adaptation. DMD is sometimes called the Phoenix of Crypto, because the ability to upgrade (reincarnate like the legendary Phoenix) is part of the project vision, as illustrated with the current technological advances of DMDv4.
DMDv1 combined the best from Bitcoin, Litecoin, Novacoin, Luckycoin, and Florincoin, a mix of industry-first blockchain solutions with Proof-of-Work/Proof-of-Stake algorithms for network security. DMDv2, which was based on Mintcoin, repaired the PoS algorithm, and redefined the coin rollout from static rewards with a short emission period of eight years to a schema with decades-long, constantly decreasing inflation. At the time, eight years seemed like a long time in the industry as a whole, but we recognized that such a trajectory was short-sighted. Therefore, DMDv3 continued following the network reward reduction curve in an improved, smoother, more natural way. DMDv4 is being built with additional sustainability mechanisms and lost coin retrieval for even longer-term trajectories.
With the outbreak of organized ASIC attacks on PoW networks, DMD abandoned the previously used Scrypt algorithm, which was also used in Litecoin. At that time the first specialized hardware was developed that made GPU mining senseless, and DMD switched to Groestl, which was ASIC resistant at that time. This was a revolutionary feat: the world’s first successful algorithm change that preserved existing legacy blockchain. It allowed the coin holders to retain their balances and history of past transactions, without the need to take any additional steps. It also allowed ordinary people to keep mining and participating in a fair and wide distribution of coins.
When Masternode technology emerged as a potential platform for bringing Diamond closer to its goals by improving both functionality and utility value of the coin, DMDv3 moved to a third-generation PoS protocol, to mitigate some of the security shortcomings of previous PoS algorithms. The requirement to participate proactively in network security resulted in Diamond blockchain’s becoming healthier and more robust. However, the promise of Masternodes did not pan out as we hoped for: it maintained the same limited set of services including coin mixing, reduced minimum confirmations, and voting over proposals, whereas DMD was aimed at evolving into a blockchain for hosting multiple services and projects. Thus, since 2016, the team has been researching alternatives to decrease transaction times and maximize throughput while reducing the environmental damage potential of the blockchain.
Now with version DMDv4, we are realizing the vision of a cooperative consensus (HBBFT Honeybadger) blockchain combined with a dPOS node election decentralization mechanic (POSDAO). This allows us to reach rapid throughput - thanks to the advances in asynchronous consensus protocols and the inclusion of smart contract capabilities combined with a high degree of compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem which creates fertile ground for business creation.
Evolution of DMD Diamond Blockchain
DMD Diamond v1
- Blockchain codebase – (*Bitcoin)
- Hybrid PoW/PoS – (*Peercoin)
- Scrypt mining algorithm – (*Litecoin)
- Random superblocks – (*Luckycoin)
- Transaction messages – (*Florincoin)
DMD Diamond v2
- Fixed PoS issues – (*Mintcoin).
- Changed mining algorithm to Groestl (*Groestlcoin).
- Removed superblocks for security concerns.
- Changed coin economic setup from an 8-year to a 40+ year timeframe.
DMD Diamond v3
- Changed from PoW/PoS to PoS/Masternode technology – (*DASH,*PIVX).
- Removed transaction messages.
DMD Diamond v4
- Changed blockchain codebase from Bitcoin to Ethereum (*OpenEthereum).
- Added HoneyBadger BFT consensus (an industry first mainnet implementation in Ethereum codebase family (POA Network, original HBBFT research paper).
- Added POSDAO validator election contracts.
- Expanded coin economic system into a sustainable infinite timeframe one that reinserts abandoned/unclaimed coins and fees (an industry first).
- Removed masternodes.
Аs true believers of open source, we credit the projects, our implementations are based on with more or less adaptation and adjustment by our own team towards the needs of the DMD Diamond project.
DMD Diamond blockchain has always been known for its reputable team and constant development, as well as the scarcity of the coin and the fierce loyalty of the coin holders. The move to on-chain governance will finally set in motion the formal mechanisms that ensure that the community truly owns the network and that DMD Diamond can continue to be reliable and future proof.
This upgrade provides the value that was promised at the very beginning of the crypto craze — a trusted coin that has long term viability and isn’t just a trading scheme that will need to be replaced in the future. By building in its own governance and the capabilities for upgrading itself, DMD stands out as a crypto project that takes a forward-thinking approach to robustness and trust and follows the old-school logic of no ICO and no pre-mine, just a purely open, decentralized, fully-featured blockchain.
