Why is DigitalNote XDN project being so talked about?
I’ve spent a decade in crypto space, have seen many ups and downs. Many of my friends often ask for my opinion of cryptocurrencies. Recently they have asked me why DigitalNote is suddenly being so talked about. Their are many in the crypto fraternity who might have same question — so I decieded to do this post (because Twitter posts often don’t give you full picture).
So what is it about DigitalNote aka XDN?
I have done some research on this project and here is what I have found.
It’s very important to understand the history first. You will see how DigitalNote has weathered strongly over years despite hardships — and is one of the most richly featured coins in the crypto industry today.
THE HISTORY
On May 30, 2014, the very first version of current DigitalNote was launched and it was called duckNote (the term “duck” was chosen because duck is a symbol of freedom and privacy protection). It appeared on the crypto circle with a bang. It was termed as the most “mysterious cryptocurrency” of that time — because it was based on CryptoNote anonymous technology, like Monero, and was a fork of ByteCoin. It was run by a very strong technology community.
DuckNote chain brought smart economy with original supply curve, fair decentralization, brilliantly scaled network specs, user friendly cross platform GUI wallet, and lots of other network improvements.
It was after four months of its launch, in September 2014, DuckNote was rebranded as DarkNote. With the new branding, XDN added new unique features, like encrypted messaging, encrypted transaction comments, GUI wallet transfers aggregation, and many network improvements.
DarkNote provided instant worldwide privacy protected transactions and untraceable encrypted messaging transfers with extremely low processing fees in a decentralized peer-to-peer network. Mathematics secures the XDN network (hybrid PoS/PoW) and empowered individuals to control their own finances and information. DarkNote provided the freedom to transact in total privacy.
DarkNote was further improved and changed the name to DigitalNote. DigitalNote offered merged-mining compatible with Monero and was powered by the CryptoNight7 algorithm. However, mining and exchange were not the only ways of gaining DigitalNote coins. DigitalNote offered staking option which was performed by locking some amount of funds for a determined period of time. It provided the network with stability and encouraged users to make long-term investments in the project. DigitalNote wallet was available as both console and graphic wallet solution for the users of the cryptocurrency.
In Jan 2017, the lead developer of DigitalNote — known as dNote — disappeared leaving the community behind for good. It wasn’t the first time he disappeared (he had done so in the past) but this time never to return. It was very similar to how Satoshi had left Bitcoin project to make sure it truly stayed a community project. Before he left, he had big plans for DigitalNote — he had said that many institutional investors, banks, insurance companies, pensions, hedge funds, endowments and mutual funds were about to invest in XDN and said that by March 2017 this was to occur. He had referred to his plans as ICCO (Initial Crowdfunded Coin Offering). His disappearance cause the ICCO initiative to fail and many of the long-time XDN fans left after being very disappointed.
In early 2018, a mix of new and old team members — who appreciated the value of the project by heart — promised to revive the project and make XDN great again. It was the time when XDN hit an all time high of 646 SATs.
The journey was going to be hard — rebuilding the community and keeping the coin alive were the two main objectives. First part of 2018 was spent in fixing the protocol that wasn’t in a very good shape. A fork was done in in mid-2018 to update the Proof-of-Work algorithm to become consistent with Monero’s algorithm so that users could again dual-mine Monero and DigitalNote together. The fortune did not favor the coin, as it was 51% attacked and timestamp attacked then and again at multiple points throughout the year 2018. Team patched the Proof-of-Work algorithm and was ready to begin feature upgrades, but most of the community members left this project with one of the highest market capital at the time ($600 million at the peak).
The team finally acquired talent and leadership in the second half of 2018 and formed a plan for success. At this point XDN broke the shackles of its stubborn and unreliable Cryptonote technology of the past, ushering in a new, fairer world with a total code rebase to include features from Bitcoin and DASH that would secure the long term future of XDN.
DigitalNote XDN’s brand new Proof-Of-Work/Proof-Of-Stake (PoW/PoS) hybrid blockchain was created to improve security and blockchain stability both unifying and expanding possibilities in doing so while bolstering security and protection from a 51% attack. Delegates are incentivized to run Masternodes that help process and further validate network transactions. Not only is DigitalNote a more autonomous system, it is also more efficient and effective. The unique selection of block creators allows transactions to be validated in a matter of seconds.
The new code base also introduced a small XDN project fund to help with development and project costs. This is mined as a by product of every block that is mined where 50 XDN is added to the fund. It allowed the team to pay for listings, marketing and anything else that might arise in the future to keep the coin afloat.
The big challenge in moving from CryptoNote based chain to Bitcoin core chain was to allow the community to swap the old XDN coins for the new XDN coins. This was not a simple process as the old codebase was flaky and we had no way of telling which addresses were active or even had a balance. Users were given a 6 month window to manually swap their coins. The exchange like Bittrex were easy to swap and our community had to wait 7 more months whilst HitBTC swapped their coins to the new blockchain. User with coins on HitBTC Minergate and Freewallet were now safe from losing their coins.
At the end of the swap, 3,000,000,000 XDN were burnt, leaving a total circulatory supply of just over 5,300,000,000 XDN.
Additionally user-run Masternodes were introduced to the network to provide further network stability to transactions. The collateral required to operate a Masternode was set at 2,000,000 XDN.
SO WHAT’S THE BUZZ?
So now you know the history, you are ready to fully understand what future holds for DigitalNote — and why there is so much buzz suddenly about it.
- New highly experienced team
The new team consists of technology leaders, business leaders, marketing professionals, and technology developers, from the top companies. The new team has brought a high degree of focus and renewed enthusiasm about making XDN one of the top blockchains in the industry.
2. Deepening DeFi Offerings
DeFi is emerging as one of the core offerings in the digital assets space. DigitalNote has been a DeFi project much before the term became popular. Every block has 300 XDN staking reward — out of which 150 XDN is rewarded for wallet staking, 100 XDN for MasterNode staking, and 50 XDN goes to project fund.
Lately, DigitalNote has been planning to foray into DeFi even more deeply. They are introducing a new ERC-20 token called 2XDN to help leverage a range of features available across the chains.
Here is a video that explains DigitalNote’s DeFi plans.
3. Integration with Ethereum Ecosystem
The new ERC-20 token 2XDN is being distributed to the existing holders of XDN, who will be staking at block 300 K. You can see the countdown at DigitalNote’s website. A maximum total of 70 million 2XDN tokens will be distributed, and an equal number of existing XDN tokens will be burnt — to ensure that the overall number of the native XDN tokens and newly introduced ERC-20 2XDN tokens remains the same.
4. Messenger Application
The work has started on DigitalNote’s messenger application. It’s called “Trinity”. It is going to be the first messenger application based on a decentralized blockchain and will provide the most safe and secure peer-to-peer messaging capability.
5. Payment Integration Partnership
The new team is exploring their connections within the world of finance and cryptocurrency to develop partnerships that will allow to put XDN & 2XDN at the forefront of crypto-payment networks and providers. A lot of good work is under progress here that the team wouldn’t want to reveal a lot of details yet so that it doesn’t sound futuristic statement.
6. Close to zero transaction fees
With a number of popular blockchains hitting an issue with skyrocketing transaction fees, XDN outshines them all. It takes 0.02 XDN to do a transaction, which is less than USD 0.000018 per transaction, at the time of writing this article.
7. Instant transactions
It takes few seconds for a transaction to happen. As opposed to many frontline blockchains undergoing minutes to complete a transaction.
8. One of the most secure blockchains around
With the technology, algorithms, and hybrid PoW/PoS based framework, 51% attack is close to impossible today. XDN learned this hard way, but today it’s one of the most secure chains in the business.
Disclaimer: this is a knowledge sharing article and should not be considered or used as financial advice. Do your own research before deciding to invest.
