Should You Invest In DASH? (A Beginners’ Guide)

ambar33n

Contributor
Dash (DASH) is one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of this century. Its unforeseen rise from $1,000 to $19,000 in 2017 encouraged an innovative wave of digital currencies with blockchain as their underlying technology. These alternate coins or “altcoins” as they are popularly known have made great use of things that have worked for Bitcoin and tried to fix what is wrong with this largest cryptocurrency.

Such altcoins have now become excellent investment options for people who have missed the Bitcoin rally and want to benefit from the blockchain economy of the future. One such altcoin is Dash [DASH]. Abbreviated from “digital cash”, Dash is one of the leading altcoins and has gained massive popularity for its remarkable rise from $11 in January 2017 to $1500 by the end of the year.

The altcoin is developed as a solution to a number of major shortcomings of several digital currencies now available in the market. For users, it offers features like privacy, lower cost and faster transactions and its structure is created as such that it supports governance and offers stable investment opportunities.

At the current price of $257, is Dash a good investment? Read this beginners guide to know more about Dash and decide whether or not this is the digital currency for you.

History of Dash

Evan Duffield created Dash in 2014. It was initially named XCoin and then Darkcoin before finally settling on the name Dash in 2015.

Evan got to know about Bitcoin in 2010 when the world didn’t even know about its existence. While the technology behind Bitcoin impressed him, he realized that the digital currency was not fast and lacks privacy.

He started working on several ideas for making Bitcoin anonymous but knew that the core developers of Bitcoin won’t consider his ideas. So, he used the core code of Bitcoin to create Dash.

Just like Bitcoin which has a limited supply of 21 million, Dash too has a cap of 18 million coins. It is a minable digital currency with a current circulating supply of 8,146,943. The last Dash coin is expected to be mined in the year 2300. Its block reward decreases by 7.1% every year and the average mining time for a block is 2.5 minutes which is 4x faster as compared to Bitcoin.

What is Dash Cryptocurrency?

A lot of cryptocurrencies like Stratis and Ethereum are more like development platforms which allow programmers to build dApps and contracts on the blockchain. However, Dash is different.

As per its official website, Dash is a P2P decentralized electronic cash. Its goal is to become a fiat currency just like USD/EUR/GBP/CNY or INR but in digital form. The core code of Bitcoin has been improved with features like faster transactions and privacy to create Dash.

Just like Bitcoin, it is an open-source project with a blockchain, active community, and wallet infrastructure for sending and receiving Dash. While the high transaction fee is one of the major drawbacks of BTC, the same for Dash is negligible.

How is Dash Different?

The reason why Dash [DASH] has received such a widespread popularity in the crypto community is its unique fundamental system which is unlike any other cryptocurrency (at least until the time Dash was first introduced in the market).

Most of the crypto projects use a node system for verifying transactions and mining new coins on the blockchain. However, Dash has additional nodes known as “masternodes” which provide the network with several unique functions.

How are Masternodes Different from Normal Nodes?

To understand the difference between masternodes and nodes, it is important to first know what a node is.

In simple words, a node is nothing but a program for validating blocks and transactions. They are servers hooked up to the decentralized network of the cryptocurrency. For instance, any computer on Bitcoin’s blockchain network is a Bitcoin node.

The nodes are responsible for validating the blocks and transactions on the blockchain and reject the ones which violate the consensus rule of the network. The masternodes take the functionality of nodes a step further by adding governance and better security to the blockchain network. Apart from relaying transactions, people can use the masternodes for completing unique functions related to Dash. Masternode owners also get the right to vote on crucial decisions which can affect the cryptocurrency’s future.

What are Dash Masternodes?

Now that you know what nodes and masternodes are, let us have a look at how the Dash masternodes function.

You can operate a Dash masternode if you have 1000 Dash coins which you can keep as collateral. If that seems too expensive, you can also create a group of people with a combined total of 1000 Dash coins. Apart from this collateral, you also need to make sure that you have an IP address dedicated to the Dash network for at least 23 hours in a day. If you break any of the criteria, your masternode will lose the network privilege.

But why would anyone want to operate a masternode? For the handsome block rewards. A block reward of 45% is given to the masternode for every block it processes. This is what we call “incentivized full-node-operation”. As hosting masternode costs money, the masternode operators receive a reward for facilitating the transactions.

Every masternode receive equal opportunity for processing the blocks. Unlike many other investment options where you earn interest on the basis of the amount you’ve invested, operators of Dash masternodes receive returns on the basis of the services that their masternode is able to perform. If the value of Dash grows, so does the reward for masternode operators.

This is what differentiates Dash from most other cryptocurrencies and makes masternode ownership one of the most secure opportunities for investment.

As per the Dash website, a masternode owner generally receives around 2 Dash in a week. As mentioned above, 45% of the block reward goes to the masternode owner, 45% goes to the miners and the remaining 10% is automatically sent to the treasury of Dash Foundation.

Team behind Dash

Evan Duffield founded Dash in 2014 and was the CEO of Dash Core Project until 2017. Ryan Taylor, the Director of Finance of the organization has been appointed as the new CEO while Evan is now a Senior Advisor of the Dash project.

Ryan has been part of the Dash project since 2014 and he left his Wall Street career to be a full-time member of the Dash team in 2016. The Dash team is now made up of an experienced management team, developers, business developers, marketers, strategists, and human resource department.

Dash [DASH] Price Fluctuations

Dash [DASH] grew more than 9,000% in 2017 which is almost six times the price gain of Bitcoin. While it reached $1,500 USD in December last year, it has continued to fall since then. As per CoinMarketCap, Dash is now trading at $257 USD with a 24-hour volume of $50,122,100 USD and a market cap of $2.09 billion USD.

The entire crypto market skyrocketed in 2017 but things haven’t turned out as expected in 2018. While Dash surely made a lot of millionaires last year, the cryptocurrency is struggling along with the entire crypto market.

On the development front, 2018 has actually been great for Dash. More than 20 partnerships and integrations were announced in January alone. Some of the top announcements are as follows-

  • Exchanges and platforms like Bitcoin.vn, BitINKA, Bitnovo, Strike Social, Piiko, Mercury Cash, MorphToken, Bravo Pawn Systems, WebMoney, and GoCoin have added Dash

  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the US has announced partnership with BlockCypher for allowing Dash payments to trade excess electricity

  • The Dash Foundation donated $350,000 to the Arizona State University’s blockchain research laboratory to set up graduate and undergraduate level programs for blockchain technology

  • Rory Macdonald, an MMA athlete sponsored by Dash won Bellator Welterweight World Championship
Should You Invest in Dash [DASH]?

Now, coming to the main question- should you invest in Dash? While there is no simple yes or no answer to it, there is no denying the fact that Dash is getting increasingly popular throughout the world. The team is completely focused on making it the first digital fiat currency and has already taken several steps to make this dream a reality.

The coin achieved a high of $1,500 just 6 months ago and a lot is expected from it in future. There have been plenty of partnerships and integrations in the past 12-15 months and the Dash team has done a commendable job of keeping the community updated about all the latest developments.

While there has been a sort of bloodbath in the crypto markets since January this year, Dash is sure to be one of the biggest beneficiaries as soon as the market starts to recover.
 

The CC Forums

Admin
Staff member
May I ask the origin of this write up? We try to not repost full content from other sites here. Your profile is a little confusing, as you’ve posted in the beginners section that you’re new to crypto and wondering whether to buy or trade. But then you’ve posted several in-depth analyses of coins in other sections.

Can you elaborate on the sources of these analyses or provide links to give credit to the original authors?
 

ambar33n

Contributor
May I ask the origin of this write up? We try to not repost full content from other sites here. Your profile is a little confusing, as you’ve posted in the beginners section that you’re new to crypto and wondering whether to buy or trade. But then you’ve posted several in-depth analyses of coins in other sections.

Can you elaborate on the sources of these analyses or provide links to give credit to the original authors?

Yes Sure I will add links to all the articles, they are not mine ofcourse.. been reading about cryptos all day so shared what i found in the interest of people around here. I am Sorry for my sloppiness, Will include sources for sure. And thanks for correcting me
 

BitFit

Contributor
The article mistakenly credits Dash with rising from $1k to $19k but it should read that bitcoin did this. Dash moved up along with all cryptos but hasn’t been above around $1600.
 

Mario Thomas

Contributor
Like most other cryptocurrencies, the value of Dash fluctuates quite a bit - having fallen from $1500 to below $400 in 2018. It would be wise to observe market trends before entering into any coin.

But, if we’re looking at the long term, as per its value and price records, dash cryptocurrency has grown significantly from its former position and should continue to be a champion of fast transactions.
 

AisJeSi

Contributor
Now it is a very difficult time for all privacy coins because regulators want to control them too much.
 
Top