~ Privacy, Digital currency, payments, Governance integrated.
Just like Bitcoin, Dash is another digital currency that you can use to send or receive payments from any location around the globe. While Bitcoin has continued to maintain its leading position in the crypto space, some contenders still exist and one of them is Dash. Dash is a shortened form of “digital cash,” and was actually a hard fork of Bitcoin.
The crypto was designed to serve as a simpler alternative that would drive mass adoption. Dash has not only built on the basics of distributed ledger technology but has even added new features. Is Dash worth considering despite the competition in the space? Well, let’s find out more about this cryptocurrency in this article.
A Brief History of Dash
Dash entered the crypto space with a different name. When the crypto was developed in 2014 by Evan Duffield, it was known as xCoin and was later called Darkcoin. However, in March 2015, it was again rebranded and that was when it became known as Dash and has continued to use this name since then. The major focus of Dash is to serve as a payment to merchants. Although Evan Duffield is the creator of Dash, he functions as a strategic advisor while Ryan Taylor is the CEO.
Since it makes use of the Proof-of-Work algorithm, the coin can be mined by anyone with the right mining equipment. It’s also among the first digital currencies that adopted self-governance and self-funding successfully. The funds used for the development and maintenance of the Dash blockchain are proceeds generated by the blockchain.
Also, Dash is one of the first successful decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) since the owners of network master nodes control the governance of the blockchain. Remember, Dash is a hard fork of Bitcoin and this explains why it works in similar ways to Bitcoin. No centralized authority has control over the activities or transactions on the network.
All the transactions that take place are recorded on the blockchain and the transfer of value is done in a very transparent way. The Dash network is made up of master nodes — servers that dedicated their resources to processing and verifying all the transactions on the network and they get Dash fees and coins in return for their services.
Although this feature doesn’t appear to be crucial, it’s an architecture that has provided the Dash network with enormous processing power and enabled the addition of two vital features of the Dash network. The two features are InstantSend and PrivateSend. They are what make Dash very different from other cryptocurrencies.
The InstantSend feature simply means that the transaction is instant and this often requires just four seconds to confirm. When you compare this to Bitcoin transactions that are delayed when there are many transactions, then Dash transactions are faster. The second feature which is PrivateSend is an excellent feature that enables users to conceal their identity and even obscure the source of funds they are sending.
This is a smart way to keep the accounts private. To achieve this, Dash makes use of virtual mixing of wallet inputs which does not actually involve funds transfer but helps to adequately conceal the source of the funds.
Why Use Dash?
We’ve already seen the PrivateSend feature of the Dash network which is undoubtedly the greatest benefit of using Dash. This feature keeps all the transactions on the blockchain transparent and at the same time, it ensures that it’s almost impossible for anyone to dissect transactions and trace the source of funds or have an idea of the balance of any given account.
Monero is one coin that offers users privacy like Dash, but one of the striking differences between the two is that on Dash, there is a feature that allows law enforcement to trace the source of funds if the need arises. However, transactions on Dash are usually more anonymous than many existing cryptocurrencies. The use of master nodes has added more security to the Dash network and offers it enhanced uptime protection.
The team behind Dash designed it with scalability in mind. Scalability is one of the biggest challenges facing most digital currencies and while many blockchain projects are trying to improve scalability, Dash was originally designed to scale up to block sizes of 400 MB when the need arises. With this feature, Dash now has 400 times the number of transactions per block compared to a crypto like Bitcoin.
If you are a crypto investor, then one thing that would significantly impact how successful you would be with your investments is the level of knowledge you have about the crypto world. It’s always important to do your own research to enable you make informed investment decisions. You can find more facts about more than 100 digital currencies in the book “The Digital World of crypto Riches.”
A look at CoinMarketCap shows that Dash has over the years, managed to occupy the top 30 cryptos based on Market capitalization. Its trading volume is higher than most cryptos with larger market caps which is a good indication of the popularity and high adoption rate of Dash. In fact, the number of merchants that have embraced Dash (which is over 500) and have been listed by the official Dash website just in the United States alone is evidence of its increasing popularity. You can buy and sell Dash on more than 100 different crypto exchanges including the most popular ones like Binance, Coinbase Pro and Huobi Global.
This project has strategically positioned itself and enjoys a lot of support from its users and the crypto space. Their original goal of making Dash a payment system that’s as easy to use as the existing payment systems like PayPal remains their focus. The developers have taken a step further to add features that make the coin superior to Bitcoin.
The resilience of Dash during the bear market of 2018 is indeed a source of encouragement to investors and there is no doubt that Dash is among the major contenders for global adoption as a currency for making payments. We may not tell how successful Dash would become a few years from now, only time would tell.
~ The official website of Dash is https://www.dash.org/
