In this guide to Dash (DASH), we’ll teach you the basics about this altcoin and how it’s made, provide live price data and explain what drives Dash’s price, and compare Dash to Bitcoin.
Interested trading or buying Dash? Here are brokers and exchanges available in that offer Dash and other cryptocurrencies:
Disclaimer: Availability subject to regulations.
Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs.
Contents
What Is Dash?
Dash (Symbol: DASH) was created in January 2014 to be the most user-friendly and scalable cryptocurrency. Formerly known as Xcoin and Darkcoin, it was designed to protect the anonymity of its users while also facilitating almost instant transactions.
Dash was designed to improve on Bitcoin’s perceived flaws, especially in terms of transaction times and privacy. Dash’s creators view it as being the next logical step towards fully digital cash.
How Does Dash Cryptocurrency Work?
Like Bitcoin, Dash stores all transactions made by users on a public ledger. This is so that the network can verify users have enough funds in their wallets to make a transaction.
Unlike Bitcoin, Dash runs a two-tier network where miners and masternodes run in tandem, which makes it quicker to process. Tandem operations also address Bitcoin’s scalability problem.
What Are Masternodes?
Dash solves Bitcoin’s scalability problem by using a concept known as masternodes. Instead of a miner performing the function of ordering and verifying transactions, Dash’s masternodes take on some of the functions of a miner.
This behavior frees up resources from the miners and allows them to concentrate on securing the network. It also decentralizes some of the power that miners would normally have and balances it out with the network’s masternode operators.
Protection From Rogue Miners
In effect, rogue miners cannot overpower the network on their own – even if they achieve more than 51% of the mining power, as the masternode operators would keep the miners in check.
To ensure masternode operators’ incentives are aligned with the network’s best interest, each masternode operator must contribute and lock in 1,000 Dash as a commitment to the network. If a masternode operator cheats the network, they stand to lose their commitment. This ensures that the node operator plays by the predefined rules.
Decentralization
The users running these nodes are rewarded with a share of each new block and they are given voting rights in the network, allowing Dash to run as a form of decentralized network.
The masternodes decide on the direction of the network, with each one having a single vote on issues that affect the blockchain. They are designed to help make decisions on the blockchain and enable many of Dash’s most interesting features.
Replacing the Trusted Third Party Security Scheme
Dash believes that this heavily decentralized system will help protect the currency from being controlled by a single large group of miners or centralized third parties. They also argue that the masternode system provides better security than using a “trusted” third party.
Privatesend
Masternodes allow the blockchain to lock in funds and make instant transactions. On top of this, they help to facilitate an advanced version of coinjoin called Privatesend. This allows the masternode to mix three users’ transactions together. Theoretically, this makes it very difficult to find out where a transaction originated.
Instasend
It should be noted that this is very different from the approach taken by Monero. The privatesend function is used alongside something known as instasend.
The masternodes lock in the funds to prevent double-spending and help to process transactions almost instantly. Instasend contrasts with Bitcoin, where transactions can take 10 minutes or even an hour.
What Makes Dash Stand Out?
- Dash has some impressive features like privatesend and instantsend.
- Dash’s network now has 4,100 masternodes, meaning Dash’s peer-to-peer network is one of the largest in the world.
- Dash has an extremely informative and well-organized sitemap.
- The Dash network has funded a feature-length documentary dedicated specifically to Dash.
- Dash runs a news site called Dash Force News.
What Is the Price of Dash?
Just how much is Dash cryptocurrency? Here’s the live and historical DASH price data:
Tip: Click the ‘Advanced’ button below the chart to access technical indicators and oscillators. Click ‘Reset’ to start over.
What Drives The Price Of Dash?
Dash has seen strong growth, although it has been subject to the same cycle of ups and downs that other cryptocurrencies experience. Generally, if Bitcoin sees a large increase or decrease in its value then you should expect to see Dash and other cryptocurrencies follow suit. As with other cryptocurrencies, Dash is quite volatile.
Partnership Announcements
In the past Dash has grown significantly when partnerships have been announced. In March of 2017 people investing in Dash saw the value of the currency increase on the announcement of a partnership with Blockpay. This saw speculators pour into the currency and it drove its values to all-time highs.
Dash Conferences
Similarly, Dash saw an increase in value just before the Dash Conference in September of 2017. This was in anticipation of more announcements. During the conference, more partnerships were announced and you should generally expect to see the value of your Dash investment increase on the back of press releases and conferences.
Dash Price Outlook
Like Monero, Dash will also see gains if cryptocurrency regulations look imminent. People will be looking for a way to protect their money from seizure by the authorities. Admittedly Monero is widely regarded as the more secure currency so they will see a bigger boom from any potential regulations.
Online Merchant Acceptance
Dash designed their cryptocurrency to be used in the same way as cash. Its value will increase as more partnerships and more ways to spend Dash are implemented. You should expect to see large spikes in value if online merchants begin to announce that they will accept Dash as a payment method. Dash has a higher chance of this happening than certain other currencies thanks to the instantpay function.
Continued Volatility
As with most cryptocurrencies, the short-term outlook for Dash is volatile. Generally, you will see a small increase in value followed by a large spike as investors pile in. This is then followed by a correction period where the value of the cryptocurrency falls back to something resembling its actual market value.
Most long-term investors will want to buy at the end of that correction period, this is typically the balance just before any major leaps in value, but you will need to use your own judgment.
Dash vs Bitcoin
How does Dash compare to the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin? What are the key differences? See below for our head-to-head comparison:
| Dash (DASH) | Bitcoin (BTC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Private and instant transfers | Decentralized digital currency |
| Founded | 2014 | 2009 |
| Founder | Evan Duffield | Satoshi Nakamoto (alias) |
| Market Cap | Over $10 billion | Over $250 billion |
| All time High | $1,600 (December 2017) | $19,908 (December 2017) |
| All Time Low | $0.21 (February 2014) | $0.06 (July 2010) |
| How long did it take to hit $100? | 37 months | 51 months |
| Notable Supporters | Robert Genito (CEO of Genitrust) Roger Ver (Cryptocurrency investor) Naeem Aslam (ThinkMarket’s chief analyst) | Jeff Currie (Goldman Sachs) Peter Theil (Venture capitalist) Christine Lagarde (IMF) Marc Andreessen (Early internet Pioneer) |
| Supply Cap | 18,900,000 | 21,000,000 |
| Initial Distribution | Mining | Mining |
| Mining Method | ASIC | ASIC |
| Consensus Method | Hybrid Proof of work/Proof of Stake | Proof of work |
| Network Hash Rate* | Over 20 DASH an hour | Over 40 bitcoins per hour |
| Difficulty increase | Difficulty is calculated each block | Every 2,016 Blocks |
*Total number of coins mined hourly on the blockchain.
Experts Weigh in on Dash
Even though many experts still harbor suspicions over the instamine controversy Dash may do well if they can convince more end-users to adopt their currency. If more services like Blockpay begin to adopt Dash prices may rise.
Peter Todd and Riccardo Spagni
Experts are divided on whether Dash will do well in the long term. Many such as Peter Todd believe that Monero is more likely to win the war on privacy based currencies. He argues that the pre-mine makes Dash too high of a risk for investors and encourages traders to instead look there. Others, such as Riccardo Spagni have gone further, arguing that the instamine controversy makes Dash an outright scam.
Joël Valenzuela, Editor of Dash Force News
Some have taken a more positive approach to the currency, Joël Valenzuela, the editor of Dash Force News, has argued that the increase in the price of Dash is long overdue. Specifically, because the currency has solid plans for long-term growth and has mass marketing potential.
When asked where he thinks Dash will be in 5 years’ time:
“At the current rate of growth and checking out the competition, I would say as one of the dominant payment systems on the planet, and the first global and wildly successful decentralized autonomous organization. In short, as the first “out of beta” crypto whose primary use is in daily economic life rather than experimentation.”
Joël Valenzuela via Cointelegraph
Manfred Karrer and Anthony Di Lorio
Other cryptocurrency experts take a positive view of Dash’s privacy-enhancing potential. When questioned on the matter both Manfred Karrer and Anthony Di Lorio said that they believe Dash will play an increasingly important role over the next few years as users become more concerned about their privacy.
US Equity Research
Data from US Equity Research estimates the cryptocurrency market is expected to grow at a 32% rate by 2023.
“Growth is propelled by the benefits of compliance-free peer-to-peer transaction, cross-border remittance transfer, increase in use cases, volatility in the stock market, fluctuating monetary regulations in different countries, transparency, and immutability of the distributed ledger technology and benefits such as faster transaction and reduction in total ownership cost.
Ville Oehman, Crypto Fund Manager
Ville Oehman, crypto fund manager at Helvetic Investments, lists Dash as one of the top five currencies they will be adding to their crypto basket. He sees:
“A lot of potential in second-tier cryptocurrencies.”
Ville Oehman
FAQs
Here are some common questions and answers about Bitcoin trading.
How is Dash made?
Dash is mined in much the same way as other cryptocurrencies, by its community. Like most cryptocurrencies, Dash is based on a decentralized ledger of all transactions, called a blockchain. This blockchain is secured through a consensus mechanism called proof-of-work (PoW).
A Dash coin miner uses their computer to process complex equations. Once these equations have been solved a new block is added to the chain and the miner is rewarded with some Dash. The effect of this is two-fold. Firstly, it encourages users to process transactions on the blockchain. Secondly, it controls the creation of new tokens.
Where Dash differs is that it runs on a two-tier system. The second tier of the system is the masternodes. These nodes enable many of Dash’s most interesting features. The masternodes are rewarded with 45% of the coins from each new block, with another 45% going to miners and 10% going into the general Dash “Budget.”
What is instamining?
Instamining is a variation of “premining,” when an altcoin’s developers mine a percentage of the coin before public distribution. These initial coins are meant to be used to fund development. Within the first two days of Dash’s (then Xcoin’s) rollout, approximately 1.9 million coins were “instamined,” amounting to approximately 10% of the total supply of Dash.
Premines were controversial in the early days of crypto because some developers cashed out and abandoned their projects. An instamine, on the other hand, is unintentional and the result of a bug in the launch software. In Dash’s case, they forked from the Litecoin blockchain.
Dash’s creator, Evan Duffield, has claimed that the “instamine” was due to a bug in the Litecoin code used to fork Dash. Specifically that the code incorrectly converted the difficulty and then tried using a corrupt value to calculate the subsidy. In other words, it was an accident.
Not everyone was convinced that claimed that the instamined coins were accidental. This explanation has never fully satisfied many members of the cryptocurrency community. Despite Dash’s potential, the questions over the Instamine incident have always hung over its head.
Where Can I Trade Dash?
See our full guide to trading Dash, or start your research with reviews of these regulated crypto brokers available in .
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74%-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Please Note: Availability subject to regulations. Cryptocurrency CFDs are not available to UK retail traders.
Further Reading
- Learn to Trade Dash
- Getting Started With Cryptocurrencies
- Crypto Broker and Exchange Guide
- Learn to Trade Commodities
We also have several other altcoin guides like:
