Dash, a digital cash cryptocurrency, has seen substantial growth this year as it moved from ~$11 USD during the beginning of January 2017 up until the time of this writing, where Dash sits around ~$1,200 USD. This increase of nearly 110x from the start of the year brings up the question on the performance of the privacy enhanced cryptocurrency that was once known as DarkCoin.
Towards Mass Adoption
There are several factors that are responsible for the parabolic growth over the year. These factors include the achievements of the Dash team over the course of 2017: the Dash network developments, integration with platforms, and the work on scalability issues by upgrading the block size to 2MB recently to name a few. A one year chart of the the evolution of Dash and it’s growth can be seen below:
Dash has been working on integrating their cryptocurrency with various platforms to further cement a mainstream path that the team envisions for the project. Many cryptocurrency debit cards such as Wirex, ShakePay, Spectrocoin, Bitwala, and UQUID now support Dash. These debit cards can be used at various types of retailers that accept Visa. This shows how far Dash has come as it continues to aim to make it a seamlessly simple task to send value from X to Y.
Along with the contribution of Dash integration with debit card platforms for easy spending of the coin, Dash has been added to several large exchanges that allow trading of the coin, including Bithumb, Bitfinex, Binance, Huobi, and Kraken.
Through governance and a voting system that Dash has implemented in their system, masternode holders have been able to vote for larger block sizes which ultimately activated 2MB block sizes in the Dash network this month. With the failed Segwit2x fork which was meant to increase Bitcoin block sizes, some of the Bitcoin community shifted to the Bitcoin Cash cryptocurrency to give breathing room for larger block sizes and scalability improvements. Others flocked to Dash, which now supports larger block sizes. With the most recent mania surrounding Bitcoin Cash being added to Coinbase, Dash may have been able to receive more attention due to its scalable nature with increasing block sizes. The 2MB block upgrade remains just a starting point, as the Dash team will look to later increase the block size to 5MB.
Dash Partnerships
Dash has been able to partner with many organizations to further lean towards a mainstream adoption. The digital cash currency partnered with Alt36 which focuses on integrating blockchain technology with the marijuana industry. By integrating Dash payments into their PoS system, the team has been able to get their foot in the door in the booming marijuana industry. Dash CEO, Ryan Taylor brought up a few things that the team has been working on:
- Global brokerage service with free bank transfers
- An additional ATM manufacturer
- Integration with several large retailers
- A healthcare integration
These developments in the Dash project and integration with various industries has shown the dynamic usability of the cryptocurrency. This along with the Dash Evolution roadmap to make the digital cash currency so simple that ‘even your grandmother would use it.’ With the roadmap of Dash consisting of multiple stages of Dash Evolution (as it is a large project that the team is tackling), the goal remains to develop a PayPal 2.0 in a decentralized state where everyone can use it with ease. This is very important to consider in order to move closer to mainstream adoption because there are barriers that exist to buy/sell cryptocurrencies with ease. By eliminating this factor, Dash would be able to see clear acceptance by investors, whether the individual acquires a tech savvy background or not.
Final Thoughts
Throughout the span of this year alone, Dash has accomplished huge milestones that can now clear a path to further adoption by entities whether they be business, large corporations, or individual investors. Dash can act as both a store of value and a form of digital cash to seamlessly transact while holding the properties of it being fast, secure, reliable, and cheap. The targeting of various industries like the medical and cannabis industries shows how versatile Dash is and illuminates its main use case of being digital money. The ease of use and primarily the scalability of the digital currency is a major factor that dictates the mainstream usability of this currency and Dash has been able to integrate this very well. This ultimately paves a clear road towards mass adoption and the integration of Dash in many more platforms and services.
