MERCATURA
MCA
Proof of Work • Post-Quantum Authorization • Adaptive Block Reward
PRE-ANN — Mercatura is under active development. Public testnet and official binaries are not yet released.
What is Mercatura?Mercatura (MCA) is an independent proof-of-work cryptocurrency being developed from a modern Bitcoin Core foundation.
Mercatura is being designed around several core principles:
• Pure Proof of Work
• CPU-oriented MercaHash mining
• ML-DSA-65 post-quantum transaction authorization
• Adaptive, deterministic block rewards
• Decentralized participation
• Long-term monetary discipline
• Modern Bitcoin Core security, networking and wallet foundations
Mercatura is still under active development.
This thread is a PRE-ANN.There is currently:
• No public mainnet
• No official public Mercatura Core binary release
• No official public wallet download
• No ICO
• No token sale
• No premine
• No founder allocation
• No masternodes
• No Proof of Stake
• No governance treasury
• No mandatory protocol developer tax
The Mercatura source code is already publicly available on GitHub for review.The public repositories contain active development code and should not be interpreted as finished production releases. Official binaries and release tags intended for public testnet use will be announced separately when they are ready.
The purpose of this thread is to establish Mercatura's official Bitcointalk presence before public testnet and provide a place for technical discussion, code review and project updates as development continues.
Core Network DesignProject: Mercatura
Ticker: MCA
Consensus: Proof of Work
Target Block Time: 150 seconds
Difficulty Adjustment: Dark Gravity Wave v3, adjusted per block
Proof-of-Work Algorithm: MercaHash
Monetary Precision: 2 decimal places
Initial Effective Block Capacity: 1 MiB
Scheduled Maximum Capacity: 1024 MiB
Capacity Growth: Maximum block capacity doubles approximately every five years
Mercatura retains the Bitcoin Core block-weight framework where practical, but removes the SegWit witness discount so witness and non-witness data count equally toward Mercatura's block-cap accounting.
Mercatura has its own genesis blocks, network identity, address formats, ports, configuration files and protocol parameters. It is not intended to connect to or be confused with the Bitcoin network.
MercaHash Proof of WorkMercatura uses
MercaHash, a memory-hard proof-of-work algorithm designed around CPU-accessible mining and substantial memory requirements.
Current MercaHash V1 consensus parameters include:
• 128 MiB private mutable scratchpad
• 64-byte scratchpad lines
• 2,097,152 scratchpad lines
• 131,072 main mixing steps
• Data-dependent memory reads and writes
• Mandatory mutable write-back
• Secondary scratchpad access every 16 steps
• Cross-lane full-state mixing every 64 steps
• SHA3-512 checkpointing every 1,024 steps
• 256 final scratchpad reads
• SHA3-256 finalization
Consensus computation uses deterministic fixed-width integer operations with no floating-point or platform-dependent arithmetic.
MercaHash is intended to make mining meaningfully memory-intensive while remaining practical on ordinary general-purpose CPUs.
The official CPU mining software is being developed separately as
MercaMiner, a Mercatura-specific cpuminer-style miner implementing MercaHash.
MercaMiner Development Source: https://github.com/Mercatura-Core/MercaMinerThe repository contains active development source. Official public miner binaries and recommended testnet configurations will be published when the public testnet release is ready.
MercaHash and MercaMiner continue to be benchmarked and tested before public network launch.
Post-Quantum Authorization from GenesisMercatura is being designed with
ML-DSA-65 as the normal cryptographic ownership authorization mechanism from genesis.
Rather than launching with classical signatures and attempting to migrate later, Mercatura's transaction architecture incorporates post-quantum authorization from the beginning.
Mercatura PQ Authorization v1 uses:
• ML-DSA-65
• Native witness version 2 outputs
• Exact 32-byte public-key commitments
• SHA3-384 transaction authorization hashing
• Deterministic PQ wallet key derivation
• Fresh cryptographically secure randomness for normal signing
• Exact structural and size validation before ML-DSA verification
Inherited ECDSA and Schnorr ownership authorization is disabled for normal Mercatura ownership.
Bitcoin Script functionality unrelated to classical signature ownership can remain where safe and useful.
Adaptive Block RewardOne of Mercatura's defining monetary features is its
adaptive block reward.
Rather than relying exclusively on a permanently fixed reward trajectory, Mercatura's issuance system is designed to respond to network conditions while remaining governed entirely by deterministic consensus rules.
The design goals include:
• Adaptive issuance within defined protocol limits
• Deterministic behavior across every validating node
• No discretionary monetary committee
• No governance vote controlling individual reward changes
• Long-term monetary discipline
• Explicit clamps, floors and bounds within the consensus algorithm
The block reward is determined by protocol rules — not by developers, miners, validators or governance votes after the fact.
The complete emission specification, implementation details and permanent test vectors will be published as Mercatura approaches public testnet.
100% Proof of WorkMercatura's initial consensus model is deliberately straightforward:
100% Proof of Work
There are no:
• Masternodes
• Proof-of-Stake validators
• Governance voting rewards
• Treasury superblocks
• Mandatory development tax
• Founder allocation
• Premine
Mining rewards are earned through Proof of Work.
Mining software may eventually include an optional and transparent developer donation feature, but such a donation is not enforced by Mercatura consensus.
Mercatura CoreThe reference implementation is
Mercatura Core.
Mercatura Core is derived from a modern Bitcoin Core codebase and preserves modern upstream security, networking, wallet, mempool, relay, pruning, privacy and descriptor-wallet improvements wherever they do not conflict with Mercatura's consensus or network design.
The graphical wallet will be distributed as:
Mercatura Core / mercatura-qtMercatura's native post-quantum addresses use Bech32m.
Mainnet HRP:
mcaTestnet HRP:
tmcaRegtest HRP:
mcrtMercatura uses independent network magic, ports, genesis blocks and address identities so its nodes and tools remain separate from Bitcoin and other upstream networks.
Development SourceMercatura Core's source code is already publicly available for inspection and review:
https://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-CoreImportant: This repository represents active development. There is currently no official public Mercatura Core binary release.
Users who compile development code themselves should understand that it is pre-testnet software and may change as development and validation continue.
Official testnet release tags, binaries, checksums and installation instructions will be published when the public testnet is ready.
Development StatusMercatura is being built and tested before being publicly launched.
Major development areas completed or currently underway include:
• Mercatura-specific network identity
• MercaHash integration and benchmarking
• MercaMiner CPU mining software
• DGWv3 difficulty adjustment
• 150-second block timing
• Mercatura monetary and adaptive-emission rules
• Block-capacity scheduling
• ML-DSA-65 library integration
• Native witness-v2 post-quantum authorization
• Post-quantum wallet architecture
• PQ transaction signing
• Wallet and transaction compatibility work
• Mercatura Core Qt branding and packaging
• Consensus and wallet unit testing
• Functional-test compatibility work
• Mining software development and testing
• Mercatura Explorer development
• Network and community infrastructure
Mercatura development follows a test-heavy process with dedicated validation of consensus-affecting changes before public network deployment.
The next major public milestone is Mercatura Testnet.
Mercatura ExplorerMercatura is developing its own block explorer and network statistics platform.
The explorer is intended to provide Mercatura-specific information including:
• Blocks and transactions
• Network statistics
• Estimated network hashrate
• Mining and block-production statistics
• Difficulty and DGWv3 metrics
• Adaptive-emission information
• Supply and fee statistics
• Block utilization
• Historical network data
• Observed network-node information
The explorer source is publicly available while deployment infrastructure is prepared for the public network.
Mercatura Explorer Development Source: https://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-Explorer
Public TestnetWhen Mercatura public testnet launches, this thread will be updated with the resources needed to participate, including:
• Mercatura Core testnet binaries
• MercaMiner binaries, source and mining instructions
• Official release tags
• Release checksums and verification information
• Node setup instructions
• Testnet network parameters
• Testnet explorer access
• Faucet information, if applicable
• Known issues
• Bug-reporting instructions
The objective of testnet will be to expose Mercatura to real-world mining, networking, wallet and transaction behavior before any mainnet launch.
Public testnet is intended to test not only whether the software works, but how the complete Mercatura ecosystem behaves under real users, miners, nodes and network conditions.
Security WarningThere is currently no official public Mercatura Core wallet or binary release.The public GitHub repositories contain development source code. Their availability should not be interpreted as an announcement of a finished public release.
Until an official release is announced through established Mercatura channels:
• Do not download wallets claiming to be official Mercatura Core releases
• Verify source and binaries against official Mercatura repositories and announcements
• Do not trust unsolicited support messages
• Do not provide anyone with your private keys or seed phrase
• Do not provide passwords or authentication codes
• Do not trust unofficial giveaways or investment offers
• Treat unlisted download locations as unverified
Mercatura developers and moderators will never need your private keys, seed phrase, password or authentication codes.
Always verify important Mercatura resources against the project's established official channels.
Official Development RepositoriesAll repositories below contain publicly accessible
development source code.
Mercatura Core — Node, Consensus & Wallet https://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-CoreMercaMiner — Official MercaHash CPU Miner https://github.com/Mercatura-Core/MercaMinerMercatura Explorer — Explorer & Network Statistics https://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-ExplorerGitHub Organization https://github.com/Mercatura-CoreThese repositories are provided publicly so interested users and developers can inspect Mercatura's ongoing implementation.
Source availability does not mean the software has reached an official public release milestone.Official testnet binaries, tagged releases and verification information will be announced separately.
Official Community LinksX / Twitter @MercaturaCoreReddit r/MercaturaDiscord https://discord.com/invite/hCF2UgU49GitHub https://github.com/Mercatura-CoreWebsite Coming with the public Mercatura ecosystem.
Official Downloads None yet.
Public Explorer Deployment will be announced with the appropriate testnet infrastructure.
Development PhilosophyMercatura is not being announced with a token sale, premine or immediately downloadable wallet simply for the sake of appearing launched.
The project is being developed first, tested extensively, and opened publicly as the underlying software and infrastructure become ready.
The source code is being made available during development so technical users can inspect the implementation rather than having to rely solely on project descriptions.
Consensus-affecting changes are tested individually and through broader regression testing before public deployment.
Mercatura intends to preserve modern upstream security engineering where practical while making deliberate changes where the project's consensus, monetary, mining or post-quantum architecture requires them.
The project favors deterministic consensus behavior, explicit protocol rules, auditable implementation, and testing before deployment.
Constructive criticism, technical questions, independent code review and responsible testing are welcome.
What Comes Next?The next major milestone is the
Mercatura public testnet.
Before testnet opens publicly, development will continue through final consensus validation, wallet testing, functional testing, mining integration, network infrastructure preparation, release packaging and documentation.
When testnet is ready, this thread will be updated with everything necessary to participate.
The public source repositories will remain available throughout development, while official tagged releases and binaries will identify the versions intended for public participation.
After sufficient public testnet testing, results will be evaluated before any mainnet launch decision is made.
There is no need to rush mainnet simply to meet an arbitrary date.
Mercatura is being built first and announced second.
Mercatura (MCA)
Proof of Work • MercaHash • ML-DSA-65 • Adaptive Block Reward
Source available now. Public testnet is the next major milestone.
