Introducing a new decentralised, open source, community driven digital currency, focusing on e-commerce utility.

The name is a Danish word, that has never been used in any cryptocurrency context until now. It means quick/immediate - referring to the focus that we have on ensuring that transactions are as fast as can be and to be the most efficient cryptocurrency for e-commerce utility in the sector. The currency unit of account is STAK, along with its exchange ticker.

Global e-commerce sales are projected to reach $2.2 trillion for 2017 and to increase two-fold by 2021 to $4.4 trillion. STRAKS seeks to position itself as a competitive altcoin for e-commerce application. This will be achieved through developing and implementing relevant technology that facilitates e-commerce transactions as smoothly as possible. We will always strive to create partnerships and increase real-world utilisation.

STRAKS is open source. Anyone is free to contribute to STRAKS’ development and make a pull request through Github. Further details making community contributions as smooth as possible, will become available in the future on the new website.

Ownership and access rights are decentralized. This ensures that the long-term application and longevity is not dependent on a single individual any longer. This safeguards not only STRAKS' future, but also your investment and partnerships.

One of STRAKS core values is being community oriented. Rest assured knowing that the STRAKS foundation team will always strive to collect feedback and suggestions from the community and evaluate the input.

With the upcoming STRAKS-vote you will be able to not only propose ideas publicly to all STRAKS holders but also vote on what needs developing or prioritising next. Look out for STRAKS-vote on the Roadmap.

Speed and privacy are core concerns for users today as well as e-commerce businesses. To ensure that STRAKS is as effective as possible for e-commerce application, STRAKS will maintain a high focus on increasing anonymity and most important on increasing speed of transactions - to always be at the forefront.

• STRAKS Website
• STRAKS Explorer
• STRAKS Discord
• STRAKS Reddit
• STRAKS Twitter
• STRAKS Slack
• STRAKS Telegram
• STRAKS Facebook
• STRAKS Community News

• Squbs (squbs@straks.io) - Lead Developer & Business Development
• Cryptovore (dan@straks.io) - Lead Marketing & PR, Business Development
• Ekam (ekam@straks.io) - Lead Developer & Business Development
• John Smith (john@straks.io) - Marketing & PR, Business Development
• Kasper (kasper@straks.io) - UI/UX, Marketing & PR
• Eskodhi (eskodhi@straks.io) - Developer
• Ned Stark (ned@straks.io) - Developer

There is only one digital currency on this list that is designed - from the bottom up - to be scalable, fast, low cost, secure, decentralized and provide for instant utility, and that is STRAKS, the alternative conclusion is simply an escalation of commitment. As part of STRAKS' decentralization manifesto, we fully support a diverse crypto-currency sector - with the caveat that we are strictly against the concentration of hashing power, through the use of asic hardware.

Escalation of commitment refers to a pattern of behavior in which an individual or group will continue to rationalize their decisions, actions, and investments when faced with increasingly negative outcomes rather than alter their course

As above summary, in addition, the following notable items:

IMPORTANT

Due to the unique combination of SegWit, treasury reward, miner reward and Masternode payments, as of this writing, mining software and pools do not yet support STRAKS' coinbasetxn configuration. The only way to mine at the moment is via STRAKS' wallet, as follows:

Approach 1 (Local):
(1) Start straksd/straks-qt locally
(2) Run: "./straks-cli generate 1" (or via debug console in the Qt gui wallet)

Approach 2 (Remote):
(1) Start straksd on remote server and local server
(2) On your local wallet (server) run: "./straks-cli getaccountaddress 0"
(3) On Your remote server Run: "./straks-cli generatetoaddress 1 <address from step2>"
(4) Shutdown local wallet (server)

We find ourselves in an attractive position of having a low barrier to mining entry at launch, which allows anyone and everyone to start mining from the outset. You are only limited by the number of wallets that can be run simultaneously. The latter is comparatively cheaper than setting up a multi-gpu mining rig.

We are curently working with mining pools to ensure that we can enable GPU/CPU pool mining as soon as practicable.

STRAKS blockchain has been set to issue a 0 block subsidy up to block height 10080. At 1440 blocks per day, this is approximately 7 days. During this time, community members will be informed of launch and will be able to configure their setups for mining. During this period there are no Treasury payments, either.

STRAKS will be capped at a maxium supply of 150 million coins. This target supports a managed inflation rate that allows for a constant block reward of 10 STAKs.

The constant block reward prevents event cliffs related to expected "halvings" and will support a more consistent and stable participation rate over a long time horizon.

More information will be available on the STRAKS' website

Fast, power-efficient and asic resistant algorithm. The STRAKS development team will continue to support a decentralized asic resistant blockchain, and will update the POW algorithm if the latter is no longer the case.

Lyra2 is simple tunable password hashing scheme (PHS) based on cryptographic sponges. Designed to be resistant against parallel attacks from mult-core/gpu systems through its sequential processing. More specific information about Lyra2 itself can be obtained from: http://lyra-2.net/

Lyra2RE wrapped the Lyra2 PHS with additional cryptographic hash functions, and Lyra2REv2 is another derivative, again, with Lyra2 at its core. Notably, chaining the hashing algorithms allows for an easy path to fulfil a decentralization ideology and maintain asic resistance.

The difference between Lyra2RE and Lyra2REv2 is as follows;

• Additional 2 rounds of CubeHash
• Additional 1 round of Blue Midnight Wish
• Removal of Groestl

Recent public discussions on how to address Bitcoin Cash's hash rate oscillation has resulted in an excellent approach that addresses many weaknesses of various other algorithms. A well developed analsysis was presented by Bitcoin Cash's developer Amaury Sechet and supported by Zawy12 via thorough analysis, with simulated results that demonstate the algorthim's effectiveness. The proposed implementation was modified specific to STRAKS blockchain.

More information can be found here:

• Bitcoin Mailing List Discussion
• Bitcoin News - Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork

In order to support continued development, exchange lisiting fees, web/node hosting costs, and various other operational costs related to running a successful blockchain, the STRAKS development team have decided to introduce a 5% treasury fee in perpetuity. We intend to ensure that the new currency is competitive and successful. To be able to deliver on that vision, we need to ensure that the currency is well-funded throughout its lifecycle.

At 5%, approximately 72 blocks per day are mined for treasury (720 STAK). In the spirit of transparency, the following 2-of-3 multisig addresses are the official treasury addresses:

[0] 3K3bPrW5h7DYEMp2RcXawTCXajcm4ZU9Zh
[1] 33Ssxmn3ehVMgyxgegXhpLGSBpubPjLZQ6
[2] 3HFPNAjesiBY5sSVUmuBFnMEGut69R49ca
[3] 37jLjjfUXQU4bdqVzvpUXyzAqPQSmxyByi

Masternodes will be supported with a collateral requirement of 50,000 STAK.

The collateral requirement is a dynamic target value and will be updated for future releases based on the market price of STRAKS and return on investment relative to its peer group.

Masternode payments do not start until after approximately 5 weeks post launch. More specifically, after block height 50400. This is an active promotion of Masternode decentralization via the Zero Start Masternode Reward policy. This delayed reward mechanism seeks to provide sufficient time for swap holders and investors alike to set up nodes.

Once the exact collateral requirement is accumulated inside an applicable wallet, the associated configured Masternode can be activated. Note that the node will only start receiving payments after the aforementioned ZSMR block height.

Unique to STRAKS is the use of a new continous activation function based algorithm, labelled Reactive Equilibria (REV1), that seeks to rebalance the payments made to miners versus Masternodes. There is a hard limit of 60% of the block reward that can be appropriated for Masternode payments; this limit defines the boundary at which total supply locked by Masternodes versus total circulation remains below ~13%. As the Masternode count increases, the payment to Masternode holders will decline in favour of miners in order to support a decentralised ideology. The new algorithm is simple in design but highly effective and lays the foundation for future advancements. More information abut this feature will be posted on the main site.

SegWit2x is a combination of both SegWit and a 2MB hardfork. STRAKS has further increased the non-SegWit block size to 4MB from the outset to allow for greater scalability and utility. The maximum serialised block size is 16MB for STRAKS.

STRAKS is both lightning network and atomic swap compatible. And unlike many other "compatible" altcoins, SegWit, SegWit2x and the larger blocksize are enabled from the outset.

For further information about Segregated Witness please visit bitcoincore.org

(Reproduced here for information purposes only, not release related)

Dropped support for both InstantTX and DarkSend. With the SegWit upgrade these features are going to be superseeded by far superior technology. SegWit will enable the STRAKS to adopt the Lightning Network, cross-chain atomic swaps, advanced versions of TumbleBit and more.

(Reproduced here for information purposes only, not release related)

Newly created wallets will use hierarchical deterministic key generation according to BIP32 (keypath m/0'/0'/k'). Existing wallets will still use traditional key generation.

Backups of HD wallets, regardless of when they have been created, can therefore be used to re-generate all possible private keys, even the ones which haven't already been generated during the time of the backup. Attention: Encrypting the wallet will create a new seed which requires a new backup!

Wallet dumps (created using the dumpwallet RPC) will contain the deterministic seed. This is expected to allow future versions to import the seed and all associated funds, but this is not yet implemented.

HD key generation for new wallets can be disabled by -usehd=0. Keep in mind that this flag only has affect on newly created wallets. You can't disable HD key generation once you have created a HD wallet.

There is no distinction between internal (change) and external keys.

HD wallets are incompatible with older versions of Bitcoin Core.

Pull request, BIP 32

(Reproduced here for information purposes only, not release related)

ECDSA signatures inside Bitcoin transactions now use validation using libsecp256k1 instead of OpenSSL.

Depending on the platform, this means a significant speedup for raw signature validation speed. The advantage is largest on x86_64, where validation is over five times faster. In practice, this translates to a raw reindexing and new block validation times that are less than half of what it was before.

Libsecp256k1 has undergone very extensive testing and validation.

A side effect of this change is that libconsensus no longer depends on OpenSSL.

(Reproduced here for information purposes only, not release related)

Between compatible peers, BIP 130 direct headers announcement is used. This means that blocks are advertised by announcing their headers directly, instead of just announcing the hash. In a reorganization, all new headers are sent, instead of just the new tip. This can often prevent an extra roundtrip before the actual block is downloaded.

In the spirit of full transparency please read the following information carefully and ask questions on the STRAKS Discord server if you are unsure of anything.

This is a new digital currency and it shares no technical association to Signatum other than its superficial placeholder name and proposed “proof-of-burn” style swap mechanics. This is simply a free coin-swap to a new and much better currency, where you are invited to swap your Signatum coins towards. Under no circumstance are you forced to do so. It is simply a gesture we have decided to extend to the Signatum community in the light of the recent scam by the old Signatum developers and emotional turbulence that Signatum investors have experienced. The whole team was in agreement that this was a better alternative in order to preserve value for Signatum investors and help promote a clean, trustworthy and community orientated cryptocurrency sector.

The coin swap poll was initiated on October the 30th and concluded on Saturday the 4th November. From the poll-data it is evident that the community is in great favour of the 4:1 swap, which includes burning the Signatum coins that will be received during the swap process. Across Bitcointalk and Discord 319 community members passed their vote. An overwhelming 85.27% of voters were in favour of the 4:1 swap and burning the coins in the process, while just 14.73% preferred the 20:1 option that would have allowed them to keep their Signatum coins after the swap. As the community has spoken and decided on the matter, we will initiate a 4:1 coin swap and burn all Signatum coins that we receive in the process. We personally also believe this to be the best option, as it ensures that fewer people may be affected by the Signatum situation going forward. Nobody should profit at the expense of others, simply because they may not have the full overview of the situation when purchasing.

Instead of premine, primarily due to the new REV1 payment rebalancing algorithm requiring tracking of supply information, an instamine was added to Block 1 for the total of 41,250,000 STAK.

The calculation of the swap and developer funds buffer is as follows:

Swap Ratio: 4 SIGT : 1 STAK 
Signatum Circulation (approx): 137,000,000 SIGT 
Assumed Circulation for Swap (0.36% buffer): 137,500,000 SIGT
*(Buffer covers 30 days swap period POS generation)*

STRAKS Swap Allocation: 34,375,000 STAK
STRAKS Swap Allocation (% of Max Supply): 22.9%

STRAKS Developers Allocation: 6,875,000 STAK
STRAKS Developers Allocation (% of Max Supply): 4.6%

Coins that remain unswapped of the initial dedicated swap supply: 60% will be dedicated towards the treasury fund and 40% will be used for air-drops (with minor requirements to increase exposure and awareness). Full transparency will be provided and users are encouraged to track primary swap funds address.

Swap and Developer Funds Address(es)
------------------------------------
at the time of writing;

Swap
[0.0] SUUTsZhb7cpXNgZbieKFrE8gocAtL7EK1C
[0.1] SPkVa5cB1kcgJk5rinL3p9w47qnjpej5gm

Developers
[1.0] SUUTsZhb7cpXNgZbieKFrE8gocAtL7EK1C
[1.1] STnW6H7rFWmoXoriS5zjuqBQntnvD1tvhB


Initial Mint to Swap Address:
----------------------------
Block Hash:

[1] 00000b6321951f2ed170bbc9b7a360995176f2df418b0e275149bfce2fde3d6c

{
  "hash": "00000b6321951f2ed170bbc9b7a360995176f2df418b0e275149bfce2fde3d6c",
  "confirmations": 82,
  "strippedsize": 248,
  "size": 248,
  "weight": 992,
  "height": 1,
  "version": 805306387,
  "versionHex": "30000013",
  "merkleroot": "4f70027abe261ca60e37ede92a988594be405dca13bdcbab915872e79ee5ff46",
  "tx": [
    "4f70027abe261ca60e37ede92a988594be405dca13bdcbab915872e79ee5ff46"
  ],
  "time": 1510792676,
  "mediantime": 1510792676,
  "nonce": 3848,
  "bits": "1e0fffff",
  "difficulty": 0.0002441371325370145,
  "chainwork": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000200011",
  "previousblockhash": "00000df14d859c4b3219d93978bcf02afc123d2344a2ed39033e1208948aa7c0",
  "nextblockhash": "000001c4bb98a9d3863d26325d95d3ed774309a605c9b0b18746f14e50253a4c"
}

Coinbase Transaction:

{
  "txid": "4f70027abe261ca60e37ede92a988594be405dca13bdcbab915872e79ee5ff46",
  "hash": "4f70027abe261ca60e37ede92a988594be405dca13bdcbab915872e79ee5ff46",
  "size": 167,
  "vsize": 167,
  "version": 2,
  "locktime": 0,
  "vin": [
    {
      "coinbase": "510101",
      "sequence": 4294967295
    }
  ],
  "vout": [
    {
      "value": 41250000.00000000,
      "n": 0,
      "scriptPubKey": {
        "asm": "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 4ec371eeab928ff421d09f9ed54ec1c98098ab50 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG",
        "hex": "76a9144ec371eeab928ff421d09f9ed54ec1c98098ab5088ac",
        "reqSigs": 1,
        "type": "pubkeyhash",
        "addresses": [
          "SUUTsZhb7cpXNgZbieKFrE8gocAtL7EK1C"
        ]
      }
    }, 
    {
      "value": 0.00000000,
      "n": 1,
      "scriptPubKey": {
        "asm": "OP_HASH160 1343c8390c5f73d608f4b47e6959d8f3ae863605 OP_EQUAL",
        "hex": "a9141343c8390c5f73d608f4b47e6959d8f3ae86360587",
        "reqSigs": 1,
        "type": "scripthash",
        "addresses": [
          "33Ssxmn3ehVMgyxgegXhpLGSBpubPjLZQ6"
        ]
      }
    }, 
    {
      "value": 0.00000000,
      "n": 2,
      "scriptPubKey": {
        "asm": "OP_RETURN aa21a9ede2f61c3f71d1defd3fa999dfa36953755c690689799962b48bebd836974e8cf9",
        "hex": "6a24aa21a9ede2f61c3f71d1defd3fa999dfa36953755c690689799962b48bebd836974e8cf9",
        "type": "nulldata"
      }
    }
  ]
}


Transfer to Developers Address:
-------------------------------
Block:
{
  "hash": "00000091f8b8c6f80eed773988516b66a1f5b1c5f3d4f79b9a04dad2ac2d788c",
  "confirmations": 47,
  "strippedsize": 475,
  "size": 511,
  "weight": 1936,
  "height": 4827,
  "version": 536870912,
  "versionHex": "20000000",
  "merkleroot": "10a1dddf9e7de23eeada61dfa141214f781c7e79d4d128d156df3a0a73ce9eec",
  "tx": [
    "6efb7d32aa752c234f443eb1cd4c1d874f0d701df5f565e20497937ef3735154", 
    "244a50f42d5685998ef111435a0047f8fdee5c2cd500f6c14e5cba3a4a773672"
  ],
  "time": 1511115839,
  "mediantime": 1511099961,
  "nonce": 27792,
  "bits": "1e00b2f4",
  "difficulty": 0.005587970264341221,
  "chainwork": "00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000013c1e58d50",
  "previousblockhash": "0000000f269e70087c382256eb88a9e81c5384a2fa2f43e22b03c368923c205f",
  "nextblockhash": "0000007a7ec954fab0e3a42aa2b4a8dbec6bf2afaa8dfadcb7c242899c1ab17e"
}

Transaction:
{
  "account": "0",
  "address": "Sh87ZGfyfQ1XmRKCESgRGVzgUqvqAd72YM",
  "category": "receive",
  "amount": 6875000.00000000,
  "label": "0",
  "vout": 1,
  "confirmations": 33,
  "bcconfirmations": 33,
  "blockhash": "00000091f8b8c6f80eed773988516b66a1f5b1c5f3d4f79b9a04dad2ac2d788c",
  "blockindex": 1,
  "blocktime": 1511115839,
  "txid": "244a50f42d5685998ef111435a0047f8fdee5c2cd500f6c14e5cba3a4a773672",
  "walletconflicts": [
  ],
  "time": 1511100548,
  "timereceived": 1511100548,
  "bip125-replaceable": "no"
}

Development of a Discord sever bot that will be used for the coin swap process in December is in full flow.

Users will use the bot on Discord, to initiate and conclude their coin-swap. The specifics of how to perform the coin-swap will be communicated on November 29th. We will make sure that everyone are notified across all channels, so that nobody may miss out on the coin-swap opportunity.

Once the swap-process is initiated, Signatum coin-holders will have a 30 day window, whereby they can swap their coins from Signatum to STRAKS at the 4:1 ratio.

Credit goes to Bitcoin Core, Dash and Bitsend for providing a basic platform for STRAKS to enhance and develop, in concert with a shared desire to support the adoption of a decentralised digital currency future for the masses.

STRAKS Core is released under the terms of the MIT license. See COPYING for more information or see https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.

The master branch is meant to be stable. Development is normally done in separate branches. Tags are created to indicate new official, stable release versions of STRAKS' Core.

The contribution workflow is described in CONTRIBUTING.md.

compiling STRAKS from git

Use the autogen script to prepare the build environment.

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

precompiled binaries

Precompiled binaries are available at GitHub, see https://github.com/straks/straks/releases

Always verify the signatures and checksums.