Dero (DERO) is a distinctive cryptocurrency project that merges a proof-of-work blockchain with a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) block structure, with the aim to facilitate completely anonymous transactions. Dero's design is a combination of the notable features of both consensus mechanisms, aiming to provide the security and decentralization of a proof-of-work blockchain with the scalability and transaction speed of DAG technology. The project was initiated in December 2017 by an anonymous team of developers with extensive experience in cryptography and blockchain development. Dero's primary objective is to establish a blockchain network that can cater to businesses and individuals globally, supporting secure, fast, and anonymous transactions and smart contract execution.

Dero's unique implementation constructs a main chain from the DAG network of blocks, which includes main blocks and side blocks. Side blocks contribute to the chain's proof-of-work security, making traditional 51% attacks impossible. Unlike traditional blockchains, Dero considers the transaction as the smallest unit of computation, not the block. This means that blocks on Dero can contain duplicate or double-spend transactions, but these are filtered by the client protocol and ignored by the network. Dero also employs the CryptoNote protocol, which conceals the sender and receiver of a transaction, ensuring privacy. Moreover, Dero is the first blockchain to have complete SSL in the peer-to-peer layer, encrypting all its network traffic and concealing it from internet service providers wishing to analyze the traffic.

Dero seeks to cater to use cases that necessitate privacy, such as voting services, escrow services, and address certification/verification. The platform's key features, including its use of CryptoNote and its capacity to support 75 transactions per second on its native blockchain without using any scaling solutions, make it suitable for these applications. Dero's security mechanism, which includes a new mining algorithm called AstroBWT, also makes it a viable option for applications that require a high level of security.

Dero was initiated in December 2017 by a team of three full-time developers. The team, which remains anonymous, claims to have over a decade of experience in cryptography each, with multiple years of experience in blockchain development. The project's complexity and the milestones the team has reached, such as designing an entirely new consensus mechanism in Golang, suggest that Dero was created by individuals with extensive hands-on experience in cryptography. Dero was developed from scratch with the intention to support users with reliability, privacy, security, and usability. The team focused on designing working technology first, before focusing on outreach activities. Dero has a maximum supply of 18.4 million, with an initial pre-mine of two million DERO established on network launch to support development and outreach activities.