Dash is an open-source cryptocurrency which is an altcoin that was forked from the Bitcoin protocol. It is also a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) run by a subset of its users, which are called “masternodes”. The currency permits transactions that can be untraceable.
The currency was launched in January 2014 as “Xcoin” by Evan Duffield, as a fork of the Bitcoin protocol. It is an altcoin and in its early days, it was subject to pump and dump speculation. Then it was renamed as Darkcoin, which was reportedly used in darknet markets. In March 2015, it rebranded again with the name Dash, as a portmanteau of ‘digital currency’. As of August 2016, Dash is no longer used in any major darknet market worth noting.
In early 2017, Evan Duffield and some other people working on Dash took space in a business incubator at Arizona State University. The Dash DAO later funded a blockchain research lab at ASU. As of April 2018, Dash’s market capitalization was around $4.3 billion and it was one of the top 12 cryptocurrencies. Since February 2019, Dash was the most popular cryptocurrency in Venezuela.
The differences between Dash and Bitcoin
Dash was designed to allow transactions quickly and to have a swift governance structure in order to overcome shortfalls in Bitcoin.
| Cryptocurrency | ||
|---|---|---|
| Launch Date | January 18, 2014 (Formerly known as XCoin & DarkCoin) | January 3rd, 2009 |
| Creator | Evan Duffield | Satoshi Nakamoto |
| Algorithm | X11 | SHA-256 |
| Average Block Time | ~2.5 Minutes | ~10 Minutes |
| Max Total Coins | est. 19,000,000 | 21,000,000 |
| Privacy | Anonymous Using PrivateSend | Pseudonymous |
| Other Innovations | Masternodes, InstantSend, Self-Funded Blockchain | The first Cryptocurrency |
1) Transaction speed
The founder of Dash understood that users wanted faster-verifying transactions. Bitcoin takes an average of 20 minutes to confirm transactions, with many merchants requiring up to six confirmations before they will accept a transaction. This can add up to an hour for a single transaction.
So, Dash created InstantSend, a service that allows near-instant transaction speed. The decentralized technology guarantees and confirms payments in about four seconds. As the popularity of cryptocurrencies continues to grow, transaction speed will become increasingly important for face-to-face transactions, and slow transaction times will no longer be an option.
2) Transaction Fees
Bitcoin’s transaction fees range based on a variety of factors, including the block size and time of day. For example, when large quantities of transactions are waiting to be processed, miners prioritize transactions that pay larger fees. Some users complain that they must pay a few dollars or more to process a single transaction.
The fees to transact using Dash are much lower. For example, Dash has recently managed to get its average transaction fee to one year low ($0.0264) while reaching an all-time high number of transactions per day (over 35,000), surpassing other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin.
3) Community and governance
Bitcoin is governed by peer review. Changes can be made, but only through a rough consensus among its most active contributors. As a result, making important decisions and changes can be slow.
Similar to Bitcoin, Dash is not regulated by a centralized entity, but one major difference is that there is a formal voting system in place. When changes are needed, there isn’t a long, heated debate. Instead, a vote takes place, a decision is settled on and action is taken or not taken within a short period of time.
4) Privacy
Bitcoin is said to be anonymous, but since the history of each transaction is made visible to everyone, some say that isn’t enough privacy.
Dash has a privacy feature called PrivateSend, which is a coin-mixing service. The technology works to add privacy and security so that transactions can’t be directly traced to the parties involved.
Who is Evan Duffield?
Evan Duffield was born in the year 1980. He grew up in a small town in Arizona. By the time he was 15 years old, he began to take up an interest in computer programming. In later interviews with a number of media outlets, Evan admits to this being when he first fell in love with the digital world. To him, coding was “pretty neat.” However, he began to take the activity a lot more seriously when he began to get jobs while still in high school. He then made the decision to pursue a career in the tech industry.
When he was in the 20s, he worked for a number of tech firms such as Warped AI, iAcquire, Wells Fargo, and Verizon Wireless. In all of these firms, he worked mainly as a Software Developer. After discovering Bitcoin in 2010, Duffield wanted to add anonymity to the protocol. Duffield claims that Bitcoin Core developers would not have merged such code. Out of frustration, Duffield launched Dash in January-2014.
In 2017, Evan Duffield decided to step down as the CEO of Dash Core Group. Evan Duffield frequently appears in interviews and related talk forums, meetings, conferences, and seminars. Also, he often holds webinars explaining Dash’s core protocols. Evan Duffield’s net worth remains unknown. However, it is reported that Evan Duffield’s net worth consists of about three percent of the total Dash coins.
Conclusion
Dash is positioned well and has a good deal of support from its users and the cryptocurrency community in general. The goal today is to make Dash as easy to use as current payment systems such as PayPal.
The Dash developers have added features that make it superior to Bitcoin and other transactional payment systems, and the resilience of the Dash coin even though the 2018 bear market is doubtless encouraging for investors. The additional masternode layer added to Dash has helped it solve scalability, speed, governance and anonymity issues.
Dash remains one of the top contenders for global adoption as a transactional currency, but only time will tell how successful it can become. Thus far it looks promising for the future of Dash.
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