News and information on Gulden, the crypto currency and the underlying blockchain. Click on the News button for the latest news articles.

What is Gulden:

Launched on April 8, 2014 Gulden is one of the oldest projects in the crypto space. It’s continuous development resulted in a trustless, decentralised user- and energy friendly store of value that is based on powerful technologies that enables for safe and unprecedented fast settlements.
It’s unique 2nd generation blockchain makes clever use of a whole range of advanced and proprietary technologies. As a result, it sets new standards in safety and robustness and can be used for professional applications.
The blockchain not only relies on the miners model, also called PoW (proof of work), but also adds witness (a kind of PoS on steroids) and techniques like Sonic, Delta and SegSig.
Gulden is mineable at home, generates income for witness holders (staking) while combining fast transaction speeds with incredible low fees. For more technology details see our Technology page.

Gulden is a collaboration between experienced developers, a supportive community and the (by blockchain) elected Gulden Advisory Board.

Store of Value

How to store and transfer wealth over generations? One can collect paintings, post stamps, land or gold to name a few. They are historically store of value assets because they are scarce. There is a problem however. They come with a lot of restrictions. One can not carry land around, or transfer it over the internet to someone else, gold has to be stored, paintings to be insured etc.. Gulden removes all those restrictions, but retains the core value of scarcity. What remains is a digital asset, safely embedded in code:  a true store of value for this digital age. 

User-friendly Technology

User-friendliness is one of the project’s spearheads. This makes Gulden accessible to almost everyone, even the less technically savvy. In addition, the underlying blockchain is very environmental friendly. This means that far less energy is needed to validate a transaction. Packed with innovations and smart techniques such as Witness and SIGMA Gulden is playing in its own league, but still true to it’s core value: keeping it as simple as possible.

The Gulden blockchain has a very robust nodes distribution, one of the highest in the world. 

With the Gulden wallets you can make payments or send Gulden directly to someone on the other side of the world; receive a (high) interest on your Witness account; create them on your own computer by mining; spend them in various shops and restaurants or simply trade them on an exchange.

Although the main use case (for now) is being a store of value Gulden is developed to go one step further. It enables ultra-fast settlements at low cost and is ready to be used as a full-fledged payment system. 

How does it work?

Gulden are stored in a digital ledger, the so-called blockchain. This ledger is distributed on the internet. Every change -or transaction- is approved by a miner and a witness and added to the blockchain.

To get access to your assets on the blockchain you need the recovery sentence. Without it, you or no one else has access. This recovery sentence consists of twelve words and you will get it the first time you install the wallet-app. The wallet shows your balance and makes transactions possible. If your computer or phone is stolen, you can always reinstall the app, but only with your recovery sentence will you be able to restore your funds.

Gulden: How to get started

Step 1. Download the free wallet-app. The wallet is used to transfer money to the blockchain, view your transactions and to make payments.

Step 2. At the first time opening the app your personal recovery sentence is shown. The recovery sentence consists of twelve words and is actually the key to your money. If you lose it, your money is lost! So write it down, keep it save and don’t show it to anyone. Anyone in possession of your recovery sentence will always be able to access your money! Note: first time syncing the app with the blockchain can take some time.

Step 3. Receive money. This can be done in a number of ways:

• You can buy/trade Gulden directly on a stock exchange like Bittrex.com.
• or use the buy button in your app.
• Have a friend transfer some Gulden to your account.
• Create your own Gulden by mining on your desktop computer.

Step 4. Now you are ready to spend them. You can make payments with your app to:

• Stores that accept Gulden.
• or deposit them back to your friend, anywhere in the world!

What else you need to know:

The value of the Gulden fluctuates, comparable with other currencies. For each transaction, a small fee is charged for maintaining the payment network. This is a few tenths of a Guldencent and therefore much cheaper than maintaining a bank account. There are no other costs.

Note: In most countries brokers and exchanges require to implement KYC (know your customer) regulations and thus need you to register with an valid ID.  That is perfectly normal and is needed for the crypto space to mature and grow as a safe place to store assets. But still: we advice you to be cautious and only use recommended brokers and exchanges. 

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