What Is Dash (DASH)?

Dash (DASH) is a payments-focused peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. Forked out of Bitcoin source code, Dash is an open-source platform that claims itself to be user-friendly, fast, and inexpensive. As per the whitepaper, the Dash project is focused on making financial transactions through cryptocurrency instant and easy to use. Made from the abbreviation of “Digital Cash,” Dash aims to move payments anywhere to anyone for less than a cent. 

Today, major problems in making cryptocurrency get to mainstream adoption are low transaction speeds and high fees. It can take almost 10 minutes for a transaction to be completed. Also, the fee of crypto transactions can sometimes cost more than the transaction itself. To solve these problems, Dash was built to provide users with instantly confirmed transactions for a minuscule fee.

Made on the vision to reach a broader market, Dash is one of the early projects to modify Bitcoin’s code to give it advantages and abilities to make it a preferred medium of exchange. Some of the advantages of Dash are:

• Fast Speed: The transaction of Dash is confirmed within seconds, thereby taking very little time to validate a transaction. A full block is created in just two and a half minutes, whereas Bitcoin has a ten-minute block time.

• Lower Fees: A Dash transaction costs as low as $0.01, making it an efficient medium of exchange.

• Privacy: Dash autonomously secures the sender’s and receiver’s details. This can prevent them from being traced and identities not revealed.

Coming to the token, DASH is the native token of the platform. DASH is the token used for financial transactions on the platform. The token is easy to purchase and receive. DASH can be used to pay for coffee, purchase a plane ticket, pay phone bills, pay family and friends, and purchase groceries, electronics, and more. In simpler words, the token is intended to be used for daily transactions between peers. To make the token widely accessible, the platform has built its proprietary mobile wallet app to send and receive DASH tokens, which are available on the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store. 

Further, the token has a limited supply and is deflationary in nature, i.e., the tokens are burned to an unrecoverable wallet and are put out of the total supply. This deflationary nature makes the DASH token increase in value over time. The DASH token also works as the platform’s cryptocurrency and is available on many exchanges like Coinbase.

As per the whitepaper, the network is run by Masternodes. Masternodes are the servers that execute transactions on the Dash network. These Masternodes are even responsible for Instantsend and Privatesend, which are essential services of the network. 

• Instantsend: This feature allows users to transfer DASH without waiting for transactions to be confirmed on the Dash blockchain.

• Privatesend: This feature allows users to send transactions without being identified or traced. 

History of Dash (DASH)

Dash was founded in January 2014 by Evan Duffield. Duffield is a software developer. Prior to Dash, he worked at Wells Fargo Bank and iAcquire.

Forked out of Bitcoin, the project was originally known as Darkcoin. Although having similarities with Bitcoin, the project made improvements in many areas to make it more apt as a medium of exchange. Later, the project was renamed Dash in March 2015. 

During its initial days, the project faced a controversy where 1.9 million tokens were mined within the first two days of launch. Apparently, there was a bug that caused the problem. However, later the mined coins were then distributed through various exchange platforms. 

How Are New Dash (DASH) Tokens Created?

As per the official website, the Dash blockchain is secured by the cryptographic method known as proof of work (PoW). In this process, the powerful processors are used, and together they search for solutions to a mathematical problem defined by the X11 hashing algorithm. X11 is the proprietary mining algorithm that is based on eleven cryptographic techniques and is specially designed to reduce power consumption.

After every successful transaction, a new Dash block is added to the blockchain. The miners are then rewarded for the work they put into validating transactions. These rewards are in the form of DASH tokens.

How Many Dash (DASH) Tokens Are There?

Dash has a maximum supply of 18,900,000 tokens to be mined by the year 2300. The whitepaper suggests that each year, the supply is to be decreased by 7%.

How to Purchase DASH Tokens?

The DASH token is available on several centralized and decentralized exchanges like Coinbase. Coinbase is an easy-to-use and beginner-friendly platform for trading, storing, and converting DASH.