The 4 Things You Need To Know About Dash Crypto

The amount of new ICOs and cryptocurrencies that have sprung up as a result of the booming success that bitcoin enjoyed can be rather intimidating. If your own financial background is Trading 101 and none of this makes sense to you, then read carefully - we’re about to look a bit deeper into one of the important cryptocurrencies in the market that you need to be aware of.

Dash is a cryptocurrency that’s relatively new, but is already bringing some things to the table that bitcoin wasn’t able to. Dash’s first name wasn’t Dash, but Darkcoin instead. It worked primarily with one of the core concepts of crypto that bitcoin lost as its popularity skyrocketed, which is anonymity and privacy. The currency is described as the “First privacy-centric cryptographic currency” by its creators. The currency has changed its ambitions since then, and now aims to be a completely different thing, hence the change in name from Darkcoin to Dash.

Dash aims to be digital cash. “Digital Cash you can spend anywhere,” is what the currency’s website advertises in big letters. The rebranding and changing of vision has made Dash a rather successful currency - it grew by over 8,000% in 2017 and has become one of the top 15 most valuable cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.

The algorithm.

The main thing that makes Dash different from good old bitcoin is the algorithm used to mine more coins. It uses an algorithm referred to as X11, which is based on the Proof of Stake algorithm. Bitcoin uses Proof of Work instead of Proof of Stake, which works differently.

The speed.

Aside from the computer science and math behind the currency, there are some other key differences to understand. Dash is significantly faster in transaction speed than bitcoin due to the way it validates transactions. There are Masternodes in the system that verify all transactions, whereas in bitcoin’s system, all nodes have to verify a transaction. There are almost 5,000 Masternodes in the Dash network to help in speeding up the verification process.

The Masternodes.

Bitcoin was born in largely academic institutions. Future development for the currency will require support from those institutions, which will take time. Dash’s developers have found a way to build it to be self-funding. In the Dash system, block rewards are being split among Masternodes, Miners and the Treasury. 10% goes the treasury which finances future developments for the currency. What’s even more interesting is that those 5,000 Masternodes are the ones to decide the future development direction of the currency as they have to vote on certain decisions the developers intend to take.

The competition.

The obvious questions is - does Dash have competition? The easy answer is yes - both Bitcoin (in the form of Bitcoin Cash) and Litecoin are trying to find a way to become a cash-like medium that can be used in day to day financial transactions. Litecoin for instance, is being accepted as mode of payment for the popular gaming platform Steam, driving up its price significantly. Bitcoin is still playing catch up, so for now the main competition appears to be Litecoin.

For the future, Dash’s prospects look good. It is present in several countries and in some South American countries, is accepted as a mode of payment, especially in Venezuela. The government there instructed all its branches to accept Dash and other cryptocurrencies as a valid mode of payment. It’s definitely time to put on the trading 101 hats and start researching - strike the iron while it’s hot.