Blockchains 101: DASH

3 min readDec 21, 2020

A private alternative to Bitcoin

DASH (Ticker: DASH) is the cryptocurrency of the DASH Network. As for ZEC, it is a modified and reinitialized fork of Bitcoin, upgraded with privacy features.

The first block (Genesis) of the DASH Network has been mined the 18th January 2014 (initially called Xcoin), without pre-mine. It has been developed by Evan Duffield as a private alternative to Bitcoin.

Description

DASH was initially released as XCoin in 2014, changed name for DarkCoin in mid-2014 before being definitely dumbed DASH in 2015 (DarkCoin was making it too close of the Darkweb).

DASH has and is still built towards the following vision:

Overclocking the technical limitations of Bitcoin as a digital cash system;
Offering a reliable alternative banking solution to the unbanked. DASH is particularly active in South America since 2017.
Building a strong online presence with merchants’ integrations and partnerships.

Among some of the most relevant features of DASH are:

Optional privacy (as for ZCASH) to meet the properties of physical cash (PrivateSend);
Instant payment confirmation (InstantSend);
Double-spent and 51% attack protection (using ChainLocks);
Self governed & self-funded model (DAO).

Mining: Proof of Work (PoW)

DASH relies on an hybrid consensus model, a combination of Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Service (PoSe) leading to a more scalable and stable cryptocurrency than Bitcoin (as a e-cash solution):

PoSe is for Masternodes (1,000 DASH locked requirement) that contain a full copy of the DASH Blockchain and provide support to miners for block validation as well as private/instant transactions, increasing the scalability of the whole network. Masternodes are also involved in the network’s governance with each Masternode owning 1 vote.
PoW is for “Miners”: DASH can be mined on both ASICS and CPU/GPU using the X11 hashing algorithm. Miners help to discover and validate new blocks.

45% of the block reward is paid out to the Masternodes, 45% to miners and 10% goes to the DASH budget (operating reserve used to fund the coin’s development and related projects).