As the market advances, there are a number of cryptocurrencies aside Bitcoin worth monitoring, and Dash is definitely among them. Following a roller coaster ride in late 2017, Dash has shifted to gradual gains in February 2018. Throughout the month, its price has been experiencing a steady growth from $450 to $740 and gained more than 40 percent since the cryptocurrency market correction took place. On February 22, the DASH/USD price is floating within a $630-645 range.
Let’s try to figure out what the future holds for this coin and whether it can follow the same upward trend in the months to come.
A Short Intro to Dash
Dash began in 2014 as XCoin. Its founder, Evan Duffield, created it to address issues he saw with Bitcoin - pseudo-anonymity and weak transaction maintainability. Like other cryptocurrencies, Dash offers private, decentralized ledger transactions, but its key benefits include instant transactions and a two-tier network that lets the user remain anonymous. As Dash’s Core CEO points out, this makes using Dash similar to purchasing with cash. Basically, Dash is short from ‘digital cash’.
The strong team behind this cryptocurrency provides the primary reason for investors to choose the coin. Dash has a development team and a leadership team with deep expertise in economics, FinTech, payments and technology. This is why the platform has such an array of existing services. It offers ATMs, bill payment services, broker services, compliance services, debit cards. In addition, Dash is listed on multiple exchanges and trades against key fiat currencies like USD and EUR. Probably, this was one of the reasons for Dash experiencing a substantial increase in both price and trade volume since its birth.
Beyond the positive news and looming developments, Dash appeals to cryptocurrency investors due to its native features:
● InstantSend with a transaction time of less than one second;
● low fees, about one cent per transaction;
● a two-tier network with two node types: nodes and masternodes;
● its self-funding, self-governing mechanism;
● PrivateSend which retains transaction privacy;
● energy efficient mining methods via its X11 algorithm that lets users mine with personal computers.
Numbers tell the stories best
What pushes Dash’s price up?
According to CoinMarketCap, Dash currently ranks tenth among the world’s top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. It recorded its $1,500 all-time high this year, whereas the largest trade volume reached $284 million/day. But analysts believe it will remain slightly above the $600 value mark over the next while.
Dash has made two bullish runs recently, one in November 2017 - when it jumped from $300 to over $600, and another one in late December-early January with the price skyrocketing to $1,500 for the first time in Dash’s history.
Theory 1. The reason for the November surge seems to stem in no small part from the news on Zimbabwean partnership. In November 2017, groups associated with the Dash protocol announced they would cooperate with the KuvaCash platform to help address the ongoing economic crisis in Zimbabwe by promoting the use of cryptocurrency across the regions.
Theory 2. Dash’s bullish run can also come from the newly introduced technology enhancements. DASH recently upgraded to Version 12.2, which features include lower transaction fees, enhanced security and higher processing speed. Besides, Dash took a comprehensive approach to solving its scalability issues and upgraded its block size to 2 MB.
Theory 3. There is another possible reason for the price surge, but Dash’s CEO nixed it. Dash ranks third on the list of cryptocurrency coins used by dark Web vendors. It ranks behind Bitcoin at number one and Litecoin at number two. However CEO, Ryan Taylor, responded to the study that included the rankings, refuting knowledge of such use.
What comes next?
Breakthrough solutions
2018 marks the year when Dash rolls out many improvements. The community is looking forward to the release of DashPay Evolution Wallet and Mainnet. What is so special about it?
Dash and its Evolution platform aim at "making cryptocurrency easy to use and access." The core idea is to make Dash a freely usable digital currency for those who are not tech-savvy, so that anyone can set up an account, add vendors by name and make single-click payments within a contact list.
The Evolution marketplace registers every merchant that accepts the coin. It will provide a searchable database of merchants and will also let purchasers rate merchants with which they do business. For merchants, the major Dash benefit is its simple, decentralized API that lets an individual or organization quickly set up and accept direct payments.
The Evolution platform has a light wallet in development that will feature all browser compatibility and SPV security. It will also boast a direct connection to the Dash peer-to-peer network of more than 4,000 masternodes.
The company releases the alpha version of Evolution in mid-2018. The Evolution whitepaper is still in the works, but potential investors can read the Dash documentation and the working roadmap for Evolution on its website.
If the Evolution platform makes a hit upon the launch, Dash will capture the market as the most demanded digital currency for everyday use. As demand increases, so does the price - this is how it works in the cryptocurrency world. But whether Dash will abide by the rules or try another track remains to be seen.