Dash (Dash) has been popular since its inception and it still remains one of the leading cryptocurrencies. Dash takes a different approach, compared to many blockchain projects, positioning itself as an actual payment method with the goal of creating efficient, extremely easy to use digital cash suitable for everyone.
This Crypto Spotlight aims to introduce you to some of the things that Dash cryptocurrency is trying to achieve and how the team approaches problems differently to some other coins with a focus on transactions, low fees, and merchant acceptance. We also help you to get started P2P trading with Dash on LocalCoinSwap
What is Dash?
Dash is a cryptocurrency that was launched in January of 2014, originally as “Xcoin” (XCO), by its developer Evan Duffield. It was later changed to “Darkcoin” and finally, in March 2015, was rebranded to “Dash”. The word “Dash” comes from a combination of the words digital and cash.
Dash has shifted quite a lot from its origins. Initially forked from the Litecoin codebase (which was itself a codebase fork from Bitcoin), Dash was moved to use the Bitcoin codebase in January 2015. Whilst it used the code from these projects, unlike Bitcoin Cash which forked Bitcoin and, after the split, continued as an independent chain of its predecessor, Dash did not fork away from the existing blockchain but instead started its own completely independent blockchain.
Dash is a fully-incentivized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. Miners are rewarded for mining while masternodes are rewarded for providing validation to the network. It brings the intriguing addition of being self-governing and self-funding that comes from implementations built into the base protocols of the network.
At the time of writing this, Dash is 16th on CoinMarketCap with a market capitalization of $517,532,991 and one Dash is worth $60.86 USD.
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Instant and Private:
Whilst often grouped with privacy coins, Dash is not cryptographically private. Dash offers a feature called Private Send with many of its wallets. How it works is that private send takes three users to add their coins together in a transaction which then sends the coins to a newly generated address belonging to the same three users. This effectively mixes the coins and can be repeated up to 8 times with typically different participants for an increase in privacy. The downside that weakens this privacy is that Private Send requires the transactions to be created somewhere, in Dash's case this is done through masternodes (which requires trust in the masternodes doing the mixing) so isn't completely private but is likely private enough for a lot of uses. In addition, as the PrivateSend feature is optional you could possibly trace the supposedly anonymous transactions if they’re connected with non-private transactions.
Self Funding, Mining, and Masternodes
Many projects face an issue of funding, which is why ICOs became so popular in recent years, many would argue to a dangerous degree of saturation. Dash, however, breaks down the reward structure to benefit everyone involved in building, growing the community, and sustaining the network.
Dash structures their mining rewards as follows - Every block reward is shared with 45% going to masternodes, 10% going to the budget system created by superblocks every month that fund the project as previously discussed and the other 45% goes to the miners. This breakdown of rewards keeps the DCG (Dash Core Group) running, so development and management are kept on track and funds the Treasury and associated projects that come from that.
A Masternode is simply a computer that supports the network by hosting an entire copy of the coin's ledger in real time. Think of it in the sense of “staking”. The ledger is stored in a Dash wallet and in return for storing the ledger, the Masternode receives Dash coins as a reward for their effort.
In order to be a Dash masternode, you must have 1000 Dash stored in your Dash wallet as collateral, a dedicated IP address to connect your computer to the internet, and your hardware must be able to run 24 hours a day without more than a 1 hr connection loss within that timeframe. In addition, Dash masternodes get paid 45% of the block reward for every block, and each of these is distributed to masternodes one at a time. Typically, around 2 Dash is paid to each masternode every 7 days.
With over 5000 currently active masternodes at the time of writing and a top 20 position on CoinMarketCap based on current market cap, Dash is doing well at maintaining growth and activity at a time when many projects are barely staying afloat.
Decentralized Governance by Blockchain
At LocalCoinSwap we love decentralized governance and we embrace it within our team by having LCS Cryptoshare token holders vote on important operational decisions related to our P2P cryptocurrency exchange.
Dash also takes advantage of using decentralized governance to move the project forward in a direction that the community wants and supports. Respecting consensus by offering the community the ability to vote on important topics is great to see in a project with a focus on decentralization.
When it comes to Dash everyone can propose projects directly to the network. Anything from development proposals, marketing recommendations to treasury proposals, and if you own a masternode, you can even vote on the submitted proposals themselves.
Dash is Growing Through a Tough Bear Market
Dash has expanded rapidly throughout many developing regions, partly as it has become a solution for monetary issues related to weak national currencies. For merchants in many of these areas, cryptocurrencies like Dash are even less volatile than the nation’s fiat currency.
In Venezuela, the restaurant chain Church’s Chicken just started accepting Dash payments in 10 Venezuelan Locations. Dash is also expanding into Latin America through Kripto Mobile that has their devices preinstalled with Dash wallets thus providing all of their users with instant access to the Dash ecosystem even if they have never heard of the cryptocurrency previously.
In addition, the Dash online business directory already lists 4300+ known merchants accepting Dash, and it’s quite likely there are a lot of other small businesses across the world also doing so that are yet to be listed.
Why is Dash Perfect for P2P Trading?
Firstly, you can set up your own business on LocalCoinSwap as a peer-to-peer trader of Dash cryptocurrency and make a profit from its popularity. Think of it as your own small business where you become your own real-life Dash cryptocurrency exchange. You can create a buy or sell advertisement on our P2P exchange and then sell Dash to friends and family in your local neighborhood or even to other people located around the world who prefer to stay off the grid and value their privacy.
The inability to access centralized crytpocurrency exchanges in certain regions makes the availability of Dash on the LocalCoinSwap P2P exchange another useful use case. Whether it’s because you don’t have access to identification documents, you lack access to a bank account or you simply prefer to use decentralized exchanges for privacy, the ability to buy from others on LocalCoinSwap provides a whole new segment of society access to the Dash revolution.
Using LocalCoinSwap to store your Dash is another option. LocalCoinSwap keep 95% of funds in cold storage, particularly useful if you don’t have a computer or you rely on mobile wallets that can be unsafe. In addition, LocalCoinSwap makes withdrawing your cryptocurrency fast, easy and inexpensive as there are no withdrawal fees and you have the option of using one of 33 different payment methods including Cash in hand, Cash transfer, Credit card, Paypal, MoneyWise and even some less commonly available options like Amazon gift cards.
Where to Learn More about Dash?
Generally, a great place to start to look at a project is the official website and in Dash’s case, this is quite a valuable resource with a lot of information and links to other resources available. With the growth in merchant acceptance of Dash, another interesting thing to keep an eye on is the Dash Online Business Directory to check out all the different listed merchants and monitor the rate of growth in this regard.
To keep up to Date with Dash news without having to keep a close eye on things or even if you do their active twitter account is worth a follow. If you want to get more involved a great place to start is their active and vibrant community on the Dash subreddit. Of course, if you’re thinking about buying Dash, we recommend that you use LocalCoinSwap, as the best way to support a project like Dash that loves decentralization, is by using a decentralized, peer-to-peer exchange such as LocalCoinSwap.
Become a P2P trader buying or selling Dash on LocalCoinSwap today!