The Peercoin network activated in 2012 and is one of the first cryptocurrencies to ever be released. It is responsible for inventing proof-of-stake consensus, which makes it the first efficient and sustainable public blockchain technology. It is extremely low-cost to operate and requires very little energy to secure. In addition, it is also the first blockchain capable of allowing its protocol rules to be governed directly by its users (coin holders) rather than external miners, making for a network that is more decentralized, democratic and easily secured by people all over the world. The Peercoin Team believes that adapting blockchains for wide scale use only through on-chain transactions will negatively affect the decentralization level and security of the network over time, therefore we choose to develop the Peercoin blockchain as a base layer settlement network with a sole focus on securing all forms of value recorded into the chain. This can be accomplished through Peercoin's philosophy of preserving and maximizing decentralization (which increases security) by developing the majority of features and technologies on top of the blockchain, rather than directly into the blockchain protocol itself. Thus the Peercoin Team focuses on developing second layer protocols and sub-networks that can interact with the base layer blockchain to adapt it for wide scale use and improve functionality such as tokens, smart contracts and high speed low cost transaction processing. In this way, Peercoin will act as a secure and censorship resistant base layer for the future blockchain connected world.