MERCATURA
MCA
Proof of Work • MercaHash • ML-DSA-65 Post-Quantum Authorization • Adaptive Emission
PUBLIC TESTNET IS LIVE
Mainnet has not launched. Testnet MCA is for testing only and has no monetary value.
What is Mercatura?Mercatura (MCA) is an independent proof-of-work cryptocurrency derived from a modern Bitcoin Core foundation.
Mercatura is built around several core principles:
• Pure Proof of Work
• CPU-oriented MercaHash mining
• ML-DSA-65 post-quantum transaction authorization from genesis
• Adaptive deterministic block rewards
• 150-second target block time
• Decentralized participation
• Modern Bitcoin Core networking, wallet and security foundations
• No premine
• No ICO or token sale
• No Proof of Stake
• No masternodes
• No governance treasury
• No founder allocation
• No mandatory protocol developer tax
Mercatura is currently in its
v0.1 public-testnet phase.
Mainnet has not launched.The public testnet is intended for real-world testing of mining, networking, wallet behavior, post-quantum transactions, difficulty adjustment, adaptive emission and supporting infrastructure before any mainnet launch decision is made.
Public TestnetThe Mercatura public testnet is live.
Websitehttps://mercaturacore.comExplorerhttps://explorer.mercaturacore.com/?network=testnetBootstrap Nodenode1.mercaturacore.com:27778
Core Network DesignProject: Mercatura
Ticker: MCA
Consensus: Pure Proof of Work
Proof-of-Work Algorithm: MercaHash V1
Target Block Time: 150 seconds
Difficulty Adjustment: Dark Gravity Wave v3, adjusted per block
Native Ownership Authorization: ML-DSA-65
Monetary Precision: 2 decimal places
Block Reward Distribution: 100% to Proof-of-Work miners
Premine: None
Treasury: None
Masternodes: None
Proof of Stake: None
Initial Effective Block Capacity: 1 MiB
Scheduled Maximum Capacity: 1024 MiB
Capacity Growth: Maximum block capacity doubles approximately every five years
Mercatura retains Bitcoin Core's block-weight framework where practical but removes the SegWit witness discount, so witness and non-witness data count equally toward Mercatura block-cap accounting.
Mercatura has its own genesis blocks, network identity, address formats, ports, configuration files and protocol parameters. Mercatura nodes cannot connect to or be confused with the Bitcoin network.
MercaHash Proof of WorkMercatura uses
MercaHash V1, a memory-intensive proof-of-work algorithm designed around general-purpose hardware and substantial private memory requirements per mining worker.
Current consensus parameters include:
• 128 MiB private mutable scratchpad per worker
• 64-byte scratchpad lines
• 2,097,152 scratchpad lines
• 4 KiB / 64-line binding blocks
• 32,768 binding blocks
• 1 binding pass
• 131,072 main mixing steps
• Secondary scratchpad access every 16 steps
• Full-state cross-lane 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 consensus arithmetic.
The official Mercatura CPU mining software is
MercaMiner.
Sourcehttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core/MercaMinerPublic Testnet Releasev0.1.0-testnet2MercaMiner currently targets Linux x86_64 and solo RPC mining against Mercatura Core.
GPU mining and pool/Stratum support are outside the scope of the current official MercaMiner v0.1 release.
Post-Quantum Authorization from GenesisMercatura uses
ML-DSA-65 as the normal cryptographic ownership authorization mechanism from genesis.
Rather than launching with classical ownership signatures and attempting to migrate later, Mercatura incorporates post-quantum authorization directly into the transaction architecture.
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 production signing
• Exact structural and size validation before ML-DSA verification
Inherited ECDSA and Schnorr signature authorization is disabled for normal Mercatura ownership.
Bitcoin Script functionality unrelated to classical signature ownership can remain where safe and useful.
Mercatura's PQ design is project-specific cryptographic engineering and should not be interpreted as a claim of immunity from every possible future cryptographic or quantum attack.
Adaptive Block RewardMercatura does not use Bitcoin's fixed halving schedule.
The monetary system begins with a deterministic bootstrap issuance phase and transitions into Mercatura's
SP-LT Adaptive Emission system.
The adaptive system is designed to respond gradually to long-term proof-of-work conditions while remaining governed entirely by deterministic consensus rules.
Design principles include:
• Deterministic behavior across every validating node
• Integer-only consensus arithmetic
• Explicit rounding rules
• Defined floors, clamps and bounds
• No discretionary monetary committee
• No governance vote controlling individual reward changes
• No developer-controlled reward adjustment
The block reward is determined by protocol rules, not manually selected by developers, miners, validators or governance participants.
All block rewards are paid to Proof-of-Work miners.
100% Proof of Work100% Proof of Work
Mercatura has no:
• Masternodes
• Proof-of-Stake validators
• Governance reward system
• Treasury superblocks
• Mandatory development tax
• Founder allocation
• Premine
Mining rewards are earned through Proof of Work.
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 and descriptor-wallet behavior wherever practical and compatible with Mercatura's design.
The graphical wallet is distributed as:
Mercatura Core / mercatura-qtMercatura native post-quantum addresses use Bech32m.
Mainnet HRP: mca
Testnet HRP: tmca
Regtest HRP: mcrt
Sourcehttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-CoreCurrent Public Testnet Releasev0.1.0-testnet1Linux, Windows and macOS packages are provided through the official GitHub release.
Only download Mercatura Core from official Mercatura resources and verify release information before installing software.
Running a Public Testnet NodeAfter installing or extracting Mercatura Core, start a testnet node with the bootstrap peer:
mercaturad -testnet -addnode=node1.mercaturacore.com:27778 -daemon
Check synchronization:
mercatura-cli -testnet getblockchaininfo
For persistent configuration, add the following to
mercatura.conf:
testnet=1
[test]
addnode=node1.mercaturacore.com:27778
27778
Public Testnet RPC Port: 27775
Port 27778 is the public peer-to-peer network port.
RPC should normally remain bound to localhost and should not be exposed directly to the public Internet.
Users operating a firewall and accepting inbound peers should allow TCP port 27778.
Mining the Public TestnetMercaMiner mines directly against a synchronized Mercatura Core node using:
• getblocktemplate
• submitblock
Before mining:
1. Install and synchronize Mercatura Core on testnet.
2. Create or obtain a native Mercatura testnet receive address beginning with
tmca.
3. Download MercaMiner from the official v0.1.0-testnet2 release.
4. Keep Mercatura Core running while mining.
A basic mining command is:
mercaminer --network test --payout-address YOUR_TMCA_ADDRESS --threads 2 --rpc-url http://127.0.0.1:27775
MercaMiner's public-testnet selector is:
not:
Replace
YOUR_TMCA_ADDRESS with your own native Mercatura testnet payout address.
If automatic RPC cookie discovery does not locate your Mercatura Core authentication cookie, specify it explicitly using MercaMiner's
--cookie-file option.
MercaHash requires approximately
128 MiB of private scratchpad memory per worker, so practical thread counts depend on available memory, memory bandwidth and CPU characteristics.
Solo mining is probabilistic. A miner's long-run share of blocks should tend toward its share of network work, but short-term results can vary substantially.
Testnet mining produces test MCA only. Testnet MCA has no monetary value.
Mercatura ExplorerThe official Mercatura Explorer is live:
https://explorer.mercaturacore.comDirect public-testnet view:
https://explorer.mercaturacore.com/?network=testnetThe Explorer currently provides Mercatura-specific information including:
• Blocks and transactions
• Address information
• Network statistics
• Estimated network hashrate
• Mining and block-production statistics
• Miner payout distribution
• Difficulty and DGWv3 metrics
• Adaptive-emission information
• Supply and fee statistics
• Block utilization
• Historical network data
• Observed node and geographic network information
• Post-quantum network information
Mainnet and testnet explorer data are isolated and are not mixed.
Explorer Sourcehttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-Explorer
Development StatusMercatura has moved from private development into its
public-testnet phase.
Major systems now operating on public testnet include:
• Mercatura-specific network identity
• MercaHash V1
• MercaMiner
• DGWv3 difficulty adjustment
• 150-second block timing
• Adaptive emission
• ML-DSA-65 integration
• Native witness-v2 post-quantum authorization
• PQ wallet generation, signing and recovery
• Mercatura Core Qt wallet
• Public node infrastructure
• Public Explorer
• Linux, Windows and macOS release packaging
The current focus is extended public-testnet operation, real-world mining and wallet testing, multi-node validation, cross-platform hardening, infrastructure testing, documentation and preparation of final mainnet parameters.
Mainnet has not launched.There is no requirement to rush mainnet merely to meet an arbitrary date.
Security WarningOfficial public-testnet releases now exist.
Always verify that software comes from official Mercatura repositories and release pages.
• Do not trust unsolicited support messages
• Never provide anyone with private keys, wallet recovery information, passwords or authentication codes
• Do not trust unofficial giveaways or investment offers
• Treat unlisted download locations as unverified
• Verify release information before installing binaries
• Remember that testnet MCA has no monetary value
Mercatura developers and moderators will never need your private keys, wallet recovery information, passwords or authentication codes.
Mercatura remains pre-mainnet software and has not been represented as independently audited or production-certified unless such an audit is explicitly published.
Official Repositories & ReleasesMercatura Core — Node, Consensus & Wallethttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-CoreMercatura Core Public Testnet Releasev0.1.0-testnet1MercaMiner — Official MercaHash CPU Minerhttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core/MercaMinerMercaMiner Public Testnet Releasev0.1.0-testnet2Mercatura Explorerhttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core/Mercatura-ExplorerGitHub Organizationhttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core
Official Community LinksWebsitehttps://mercaturacore.comExplorerhttps://explorer.mercaturacore.comX / Twitter@MercaturaCoreRedditr/MercaturaDiscordhttps://discord.gg/DJbwa9fRTGitHubhttps://github.com/Mercatura-Core
Development PhilosophyMercatura is being developed conservatively rather than launching mainnet simply to meet a schedule.
The project moved through private development, consensus testing, wallet testing, mining integration and infrastructure preparation before opening the public testnet.
Consensus-affecting changes are tested individually and through broader regression testing before deployment.
Mercatura aims to preserve modern upstream security engineering where practical while making deliberate changes where its consensus, monetary, mining and post-quantum architecture require 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 public-testnet testing are welcome.
What Comes Next?The current major milestone is
extended public-testnet operation.
Public testnet will continue to be used to evaluate:
• Network stability
• Peer-to-peer behavior
• Real-world mining
• DGWv3 difficulty behavior
• Wallet operation and recovery
• Post-quantum transactions
• Adaptive emission
• Explorer and infrastructure reliability
• Cross-platform releases
• Upgrade and operational procedures
Results from public testnet will be evaluated before any mainnet launch decision is made.
Final mainnet launch-sensitive parameters, including the permanent mainnet genesis identity, will be generated and published only when the project is ready for mainnet.
There is no need to rush mainnet simply to meet an arbitrary date.
Mercatura is being built, tested and opened in stages.
Mercatura (MCA)
Proof of Work • MercaHash • ML-DSA-65 • Adaptive Emission
PUBLIC TESTNET LIVE
Mainnet has not launched. Testnet MCA has no monetary value.
