Dash cryptocurrency is mainly focused on providing fast transactions and much bigger privacy. The altcoin surpassed the $1 billion market cap when the cryptocurrency made big gains since in 2017 a single dash was worth only $11 by later in March it skyrocketed to the $100 price point. How did this cryptocurrency become big and what else do we know about it?

Multiple factors fuelled the growth of Dash such as bank partnerships and payment services but we’ll get to that later. First, let us explain what it is. Dash is a peer-to-peer decentralized electronic form of payment which is free from the centralized regulations such as government authority and banks. This altcoin allows the users to transact anonymously and it was initially inspired by the number one cryptocurrency Bitcoin but with a twist. The founder of Dash Evan Duffield explained that:

 “Dash is built on the same technology that made Bitcoin successful. Besides, it employs a secondary network known as the Masternode Network. Masternodes are a new concept in digital currency, where users are incentivized to run full nodes and provide extra services to the network such as Darksend and InstantX. Put simply, they allow us to add features to Dash that are impossible in Bitcoin.”

Dash gathers a lot of attention in the past few months but very few people know that it has been on the market for quite some time now, more specifically since 2014. The renewed interest for the cryptocurrency is encouraging others to also have a second look at their crypto projects and find features that are not available with the other cryptocurrency options.

Evan Duffield is the founder of Dash and he created the cryptocurrency just as many other cryptocurrency founders by studying and using Bitcoin. Duffield discovered the number one cryptocurrency back in 2010 and was impressed with its technology. However, after he used it for quite some time he discovered there are a few fundamental challenges that he felt needed fixing. At first, Bitcoin was not fast enough for him. Duffield found that the verifying process of the transactions took too long which slowed down the transaction times and resulted in nothing but frustration. Second, he also felt that the infrastructure needed a greater level of privacy because this is one of the key factors that attract users. However, he found out that privacy and anonymity are not the same things.

After long research and months of hard work, Dash was launched in 2014 and used the Bitcoin code but unlike Bitcoin, the new currency has different features that make it more private. During the first two days after it was launched, more than 1.9 million coins were mined which more than 10 percent of the total supply is alerting that something is wrong. Of course, a bug was found but the company still allowed the recipients to keep their coins despite the solving the bug problem and making sure not to occur again. Today, there are about 7.4 million Dash in circulation and the total number of coins in circulation is expected to reach up to 18 million.

Most recently, the coin also went through a name change from ‘’DarkCoin’’ to Dash because the company thought that the name associated the cryptocurrency with illegal activities which were not the initial intention.

Duffield was very clear when he designed Dash saying that he wants to create a cryptocurrency that will have a new level of privacy. He explained that just because transactions are anonymous, does not mean that they are truly private. With Bitcoin, all of the transactions are shown on the public blockchain and though they are not linked to any specific individual, some argue that with good forensic research, you could eventually uncover the source. Dash was designed to provide optional privacy features for everyone concerned about keeping their transactions private. For example, Dash offers PrivateSend which is a feature that allows the users to send funds privately by using the coin-mixing service.

The company sees the financial privacy as a fundamental right so therefore Dash created an option for all of the users to make transactions with true privacy so that nobody can associate a person’s identity with an address or transactions. The users are now able to keep all their transactions private.

The way that Dash is released into the system is through mining. Dash Mining works similar to other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin and Bitcoin where the foundation is a blockchain which includes a decentralized ledger of all transactions that have happened. The transactions must be confirmed to ensure that no coin is double-spent so this is where mining comes handy. The confirmation process is accomplished via a consensus mechanism which is a proof-of-work concept and the miners use specialized Dash mining hardware and the computers to solve difficult math problems to confirm the transaction. Each solution earns the person a right to add a new block to the blockchain.

The average block-mining time is 2.5 minutes on the Dash blockchain which is faster about four times as much as Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency can be purchased through multiple exchanges and once purchased the money is put in a wallet that can be downloaded from the official Dash website.

In summary, three features make Dash unique. The altcoin is branded as ‘’Digital Cash’’ and there are a lot of legitimate merchants have started accepting it. Dash has a genuine potential of being accepted in the mainstream. The currency has demonstrated that it can fulfill the promises that it guaranteed. If adopted well, Dash could end up being an essential piece of the future of society. The cryptocurrency is increasingly adaptable and ready to use and has a strong framework that separates it from the other cryptocurrency worthy of the venture.