There are thousands of cryptocurrencies. Yet Dash cryptocurrency has managed to keep bursting our heads in the top 30 ?.
By the end of this article, you’ll know what Dash is and why everyone is rushing. You will also the best part, which is where to buy it and more excitingly, where to spend it ?.
What is Dash and Why is Everyone Making Noise About it?
Dash (DASH) is a platform that allows people to pay for their transactions quickly, even in Nigeria. It has its own digital money called DASH. You can buy and sell it on a crypto exchange for profit.
But First, Let’s Dash Through a 30-Second History Lesson!
In 2014, a couple of ambitious software developers combed through Bitcoin’s structure ?.
Among them was Dash founder Evan Duffield. They looked at what made Bitcoin bang as a cryptocurrency. They also looked at the parts of Bitcoin that made people want to pull their hair out.
After analysing Bitcoin, they knew exactly what they wanted to improve on and Dash was born.
Okay so full disclosure, Dash was initially called Darkcoin.
Yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking. It was used for transactions on the dark web at some point and here’s why: its creators designed it to be a privacy coin. This means that its users were in stealth mode and transactions could not be traced.
You might be thinking, “isn’t that just a more obvious form of Monero?” Well, the thing is, unlike Monero where anonymity is built into its structure, Dash lets you choose. That’s where its InstantSend and PrivateSend features come in. We’ll talk about that later in this article so keep going.
The 14,900% Increase
Compared to other cryptocurrencies, this crypto has been stable over the years. Older than most cryptocurrencies, it has settled at an average price of $72.
Let’s take a brief look at its journey over time. Next, you can decide if its price movement is something you’re willing to bet your future billions on.
It had a good start jumping from $1 to $11 within its first 2 months. It maintained a stable price movement until the big bang of 2017 ??. You know how that went ?. If you don’t know, then listen up because this is one of our favourite stories.
It all began in the summer of 2017. The sky was blue, the birds were singing, and Arsenal had just beat Leicester city 4 – 3. Suddenly, Bitcoin dashed into headlines like a thief in the night for hitting $4,000!
How??? I mean, $3,000 was fine but $4,000? The media went crazy. Around the same time, Dash hit $206. Bitcoin continued its climb, hitting $20,000 in December of that year. Dash hit its peak of $1,243 (A 14,900% increase in 12 months) ?.
Since then, it has maintained a fairly stable price.
Best Uses for Dash
- You can use Dash to make private payments.
- You can also use Dash to pay for things like plane tickets.
- Due to its current plans, you’ll be able to store data on the dash platform.
How to Buy Dash From Your Nigerian Bank Account
Dash is available on Quidax at the best rate. You can buy with Naira straight from your bank account. You can also store it, trade it, or dash us some ?.
Sign up to get started. You can also join our exclusive community of amazing welcoming people who use cryptocurrencies including Dash.
How Does Dash Work?
Like Bitcoin, Dash stores its transactions on a blockchain. This is a public database where Bitcoin stores its transactions in different groups known as blocks. If you’re not familiar with Bitcoin’s blockchain, here’s another 30-second lecture on that ??????. So grab a seat!
On Bitcoin, every user’s computer acts as a node. So when a miner updates the Bitcoin blockchain, everyone’s version is also updated.
Here’s an example to help you understand better:
Let’s say you’re working on a project with your friends, Chioma and Tunde. You want everyone to have the same version of that project at the same time.
The problem is that you’re all in different cities. So you use an app like Google Docs to create a document. You write something new on that document in the middle of the night.
When your friends wake up and check their computers, they can see what you wrote. So at any time, you all have the same copy of that document. In this example, you and your friends are the nodes, and your project is the blockchain.
Dash Uses Master Nodes Instead…
With Dash, only a few nodes can verify transactions. These are called master nodes. Using our Google docs example, let’s say everyone at your company can access the document. They can view it but they can’t edit it.
Chioma and Tunde can edit it because they paid a deposit for that special access. So when any of you edits the document, everyone gets the updates. In this case, Chioma, and Tunde are master nodes and they can verify Dash transactions on its blockchain.
It costs about 1,000 Dash ($72,000 or ₦27.6 million) to become a master node. This also buys special voting privileges when making decisions concerning Dash.
How are New Dash Coins Created
Miners can gather all transactions, put them in a batch (called a block) and validate these transactions. They are paid a block reward for mining which is split between 3 groups:
- The Miner who earns the block reward gets 45%
- The master nodes all share another 45%
- The general fund gets 10% which goes towards operational expenses.
How to Check Dash Transactions
You can see public Dash transactions by visiting its block explorer. You can search for transactions, blocks, and even public addresses.
Is it an Alternative to Bitcoin?
Yes. Absolutely. Dash is basically Bitcoin’s younger brother who went to Harvard and specialised in finance. But when you look closely, you’ll see that there’s only one real similarity between them. They both started out as payment platforms. But their differences? Major!
Difference Between Dash and Bitcoin
| Dash | Bitcoin | |
| Specialisation | Specialised utility coin specifically for online payments in e-commerce. | Bitcoin can be used for general payments. It isn’t made for one particular thing. |
| Transaction Speed | Completes transactions sharply! 4 seconds and you can go back to eating your jollof rice with peace of mind. This is its instantSend feature. | Bitcoin usually completes transactions in 10 minutes. You can cook noodles and sleep through 2 podcasts in that time ?. |
| Transaction Costs | Dash transactions will cost you an average of $0.2 (₦80). | Bitcoin transactions cost an average of $3 (₦1,200). |
| Privacy/Anonymity | Allows you to transact anonymously with its PrivateSend feature. | You can search for Bitcoin transactions on its blockchain. |
| Diversification | Looking at becoming a cloud service in response to how technology is changing. | Bitcoin has no immediate plans to change its structure. |
Where to Spend your Dash in Nigeria
Can you guess how many Nigerian businesses are listed on the official Dash site? 240! Two hundred and forty! That’s over 200 places that you can casually stroll into and decide to flex your Dash wallet. You can find more places that accept Dash globally on discoverdash.
What’s Next?
Dash has been preparing to take things to the next level. They are creating a way for people to store verified data on their cloud platform. This has been in the part of their plan from the very beginning.
Do you want to learn more about crypto trading but you don’t know where to start? Join our community! We hold regular training just like this one.
You can also check out our other cryptocurrency guides.
Alternatively, you can read about the unique challenges and journey of people via their Bitcoin Stories and share yours with us.
