Dash is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...

. It is an

altcoin A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It is ...

that was forked from the

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

protocol. It is also a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) run by a subset of its users, which are called "masternodes".

History

The currency was launched in January 2014 as "Xcoin" by Evan Duffield, as a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

of the

protocol. It is an

and in its early days it was subject to

pump and dump Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operat ...

speculation. It was rebranded as Darkcoin, which received press for being used in dark net markets. In March 2015, it rebranded again with the name Dash as a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words In early 2017 Duffield, who lived in the Phoenix area, and some other people working on Dash took space in a

business incubator Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture c ...

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

. The Dash DAO later funded a blockchain research lab at ASU. , Dash's

market capitalization Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by ...

was around $4.3 billion and it was one of the top 12 cryptocurrencies. , Dash was the most popular cryptocurrency in Venezuela according to

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

. In October 2022 Dash had a valued market capitalisation of 450 million USD.

Design and governance

Dash was designed to allow transactions quickly and to have a swift governance structure in order to overcome shortfalls in

. What makes Dash different from Bitcoin is that it splits its rewards into three categories: 45% goes to miners, 45% goes to masternodes (these are computers that additional services in the network and have a significant investment in Dash tokens), and 10% goes towards its decentralized governance budget.

Governance

Governance is handled through a form of decentralized autonomous organization in which decisions are made on a

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, ...

via masternodes. Masternodes perform standard

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a " knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph * Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, line ...

functions like hosting a copy of the blockchain, relaying messages, and validating transactions on the network, and in addition act as shareholders, voting on proposals for improving Dash's ecosystem. Anyone with 1,000 Dash Coins (DASH), the protocols native cryptocurrency, can become a masternode owner. Along with masternodes, the system includes standard nodes and

miners A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...

. The system's decentralization has been criticized due to a mishap, which allowed too many coins to be distributed at release. This concentrated the wealth in a small group, giving them disproportionate power in decisions over the currency’s future.

Consensus

As of 2018, coins were mined using a

proof of work Proof of work (PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party (the ''prover'') proves to others (the ''verifiers'') that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expe ...

algorithm with a

hash function A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values. The values returned by a hash function are called ''hash values'', ''hash codes'', ''digests'', or simply ''hashes''. The values are usually ...

called "X11", with eleven rounds of hashing, and the average time to mine a coin was around two and a half minutes. Masternodes provide two additional kinds of transactions. "InstantSend" bypasses mining and instead requires a consensus of masternodes to validate a transaction, speeding transactions. "PrivateSend" is intended to give users optional consumer-grade privacy; it mixes participating users' unspent Dash before executing a transaction.

References

External links

* {{Cryptocurrencies, state=expanded Cryptocurrency projects 2014 software Computer-related introductions in 2014 Decentralized autonomous organizations