![]() Dash Logo | |
Denominations | |
---|---|
Plural | Dash |
Code | DASH |
Previous names | Xcoin, Darkcoin |
Subunits | |
1⁄100000000 | duff |
? | Dash |
? | mDash |
Development | |
Original author(s) | Evan Duffield |
White paper | Whitepaper |
Initial release | 18 January 2014 |
Latest release | 21.0.0 / 29 July 2024 |
Code repository | github |
Written in | C++ |
Ledger | |
Timestamping scheme | Proof-of-work |
Hash function | X11 |
Issuance schedule | Decentralized, block reward |
Block reward | 1.9063962 DASH (as of 2 August 2024 [update] ) |
Block time | 2.5 minutes |
Block explorer | insight |
Demographics | |
Official user(s) | Worldwide |
Administration | |
Date of introduction | 18 January 2014 |
Website | |
Website | dash |
Dash is an open source cryptocurrency. It is an altcoin that was forked from the Bitcoin protocol. It is also a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) run by a subset of its users. It was previously known as Xcoin and Darkcoin.
The currency was launched in January 2014 as "Xcoin" by Evan Duffield, as a fork of the Bitcoin protocol. [1] [2] It is an altcoin and in its early days it was subject to pump and dump speculation. [3] It was rebranded as Darkcoin, [4] which received press for being used in dark net markets. [5] In March 2015, it rebranded again with the name Dash as a portmanteau of 'digital cash'. [3] As of August 2016, Dash is no longer used in any major dark net markets worth noting. [4]
In early 2017 Duffield, who lived in the Phoenix area, and some other people working on Dash took space in a business incubator at Arizona State University. [6] The Dash DAO later funded a blockchain research lab at ASU. [7]
As of April 2018 [update] , Dash's market capitalization was around $4.3 billion and it was one of the top 12 cryptocurrencies. [8]
As of February 2019 [update] , Dash was the most popular cryptocurrency in Venezuela according to Der Spiegel . [9] In Venezuela, it was often used alongside Bitcoin and Petro, with Petro basing much of its technology from Dash. On 1 October 2018, Petro switched to an X11 algorithm-based design, which was copied from Dash. [10]
Dash was designed to allow transactions quickly and to have a swift governance structure in order to overcome shortfalls in Bitcoin. [3]
Governance is handled through a form of decentralized autonomous organization in which decisions are made via a blockchain. The system includes standard nodes and miners. [1]
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. [8]
As of 2018, coins were mined using a proof of work algorithm with a hash function called "X11", with eleven rounds of hashing, and the average time to mine a coin was around two and a half minutes. [1]
Proof of work (PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party proves to others that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expenditure with minimal effort on their part. The concept was invented by Moni Naor and Cynthia Dwork in 1993 as a way to deter denial-of-service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from a service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. The term "proof of work" was first coined and formalized in a 1999 paper by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juels. The concept was adapted to digital tokens by Hal Finney in 2004 through the idea of "reusable proof of work" using the 160-bit secure hash algorithm 1 (SHA-1).
Double-spending is the unauthorized production and spending of money, either digital or conventional. It represents a monetary design problem: a good money is verifiably scarce, and where a unit of value can be spent more than once, the monetary property of scarcity is challenged. As with counterfeit money, such double-spending leads to inflation by creating a new amount of copied currency that did not previously exist. Like all increasingly abundant resources, this devalues the currency relative to other monetary units or goods and diminishes user trust as well as the circulation and retention of the currency.
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Consensus between nodes is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, that guarantees the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Mining consumes large quantities of electricity and has been criticized for its environmental effects.
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 has, in a financial point of view, grown to be its own asset class. However, on the contrary to other asset classes like equities or commodities, sectors have not been officially defined as of yet though abstract version of them exist .
Litecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Inspired by Bitcoin, Litecoin was among the earliest altcoins, starting in October 2011. In technical details, the Litecoin main chain shares a slightly modified Bitcoin codebase. The practical effects of those codebase differences are lower transaction fees, faster transaction confirmations, and faster mining difficulty retargeting. Due to its underlying similarities to Bitcoin, Litecoin has historically been referred to as the "silver to Bitcoin's gold." In 2022, Litecoin added optional privacy features via soft fork through the MWEB upgrade.
The Bitcoin protocol is the set of rules that govern the functioning of Bitcoin. Its key components and principles are: a peer-to-peer decentralized network with no central oversight; the blockchain technology, a public ledger that records all Bitcoin transactions; mining and proof of work, the process to create new bitcoins and verify transactions; and cryptographic security.
Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-source software.
NXT is an open source cryptocurrency and payment network launched in 2013 by anonymous software developer BCNext. It uses proof-of-stake to reach consensus for transactions—as such, there is a static money supply. Unlike Bitcoin, there is no mining. NXT was specifically conceived as a flexible platform around build applications and financial services, and serves as basis for ARDR (Ardor), a blockchain-as-a-service multichain platform developed by Jelurida, and IoTeX (cryptocurrency) the current steward of NXT as of 2021. NXT has been covered extensively in the "Call for Evidence" report by ESMA.
Stellar, or Stellar Lumens, is an open-source, decentralized protocol for digital currency to fiat money low-cost transfers which allows cross-border transactions between any pair of currencies. The Stellar protocol is supported by a Delaware nonprofit corporation, the Stellar Development Foundation, though this organization does not enjoy 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status with the IRS.
A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain, with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are irreversible in that, once they are recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks.
Monero is a cryptocurrency which uses a blockchain with privacy-enhancing technologies to obfuscate transactions to achieve anonymity and fungibility. Observers cannot decipher addresses trading Monero, transaction amounts, address balances, or transaction histories.
The DAO was a digital decentralized autonomous organization and a form of investor-directed venture capital fund. After launching in April 2016 via a token sale, it became one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in history, but it ceased activity after much of its funds were taken in a hack in June 2016.
Ethereum Classic is a blockchain-based distributed computing platform that offers smart contract (scripting) functionality. It is open source and supports a modified version of Nakamoto consensus via transaction-based state transitions executed on a public Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that is a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is a spin-off or altcoin that was created in 2017.
A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification, or legally signing a 'document'.
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) is a cryptocurrency. It is a hard fork of Bitcoin, the open source cryptocurrency. It is an open source, decentralized digital currency without a central bank or intermediary that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer Bitcoin Gold network.
Verge Currency is a decentralized open-source cryptocurrency which offers various levels of private transactions. It does this by obfuscating the IP addresses of users with Tor and by leveraging stealth transactions making it difficult to determine the geolocation of its users.
A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency where the value of the digital asset is supposed to be pegged to a reference asset, which is either fiat money, exchange-traded commodities, or another cryptocurrency.
Colored Coins is an open-source protocol that allows users to represent and manipulate immutable digital resources on top of Bitcoin transactions. They are a class of methods for representing and maintaining real-world assets on the Bitcoin blockchain, which may be used to establish asset ownership. Colored coins are bitcoins with a mark on them that specifies what they may be used for. Colored coins are also considered the initial step toward NFTs built on top of the Bitcoin network.