A lot of blockchains claim to be the “Improved Bitcoin,” but DASH might be the best one of them all. https://i.imgur.com/tvrswRV.png _{[source](https://www.dash.org/)} DASH offers all of the usual “blockchain-as-mainstream-currency” features: + One second transaction speed + Private/anonymous transactions when desired + Decentralized, running on many “Masternodes” and mining rigs + Token issuance is set in stone on the code level as well as a few novel new features: + Self-funding budgetary system (10% of tokens pay for community initiatives) + Decentralized Governance + Heavy focus on marketing/brand promotion via the self-funding system This sentence from the DASH home page feels like it sums up the mission: https://i.imgur.com/WzEO9Uy.png Many cryptocurrencies want to become “the” mainstream solution for basic monetary functionality around the world. DASH is a legitimate contender for that role.

About This Series + Disclaimer

This post is part of a new series where I investigate each of the top 50 coins by market cap (based on coinmarketcap.com's rankings on October 11, 2017). My goal is to help steem’s userbase become the most knowledgable blockchain community in the world. **Disclaimer:** I am not an investment expert and will not be providing investment advice. I will teach you about the top 50 coins, and you can do what you want with that info.

DASH’s Promotional Prowess

The most noteworthy thing about DASH is that they are doing a great job of marketing themselves, yet in a way that does not compromise the integrity of the blockchain. This is an example of how to decentralize the marketing and fund it from within the blockchain’s own ecosystem. 10% of all block rewards are reserved for a pool of money that can be applied for, and allocated by, the DASH community. Users make proposals asking for amounts of money (in DASH) to execute projects. For example there could be a 1 DASH project to run Facebook advertisements aimed at investment bankers, promoting DASH. Or there could be a developer who wants to build a Shopify plugin with DASH features and asks for 20 DASH to pay a 10-person team. The projects can be as big or as small as you’d like. Anybody with DASH can then vote for these community initiatives, similarly to Steemians voting for witnesses. In this way DASH automatically allocates some of the money it “prints” to increase the network effects of the currency, thus increasing the value of the token. It’s a clever way to grow a cryptocurrency and should be at least considered for most decentralized tokens going forward.

Pretty Standard Governance/Consensus

By now we’ve looked at a *lot* of blockchains and discussed many different consensus/governance models. The main twist for DASH is that it splits up blockchain functions into both **Nodes** and **Masternodes** which serve different purposes. This creates a theoretically better and more decentralized way of maintaining the blockchain without long-term economic issues. For the layman, this won’t make any difference. From the surface level, the DASH blockchain looks good and works like any other. You can trust that there’s enough faith in the technical veracity of the system to drive its current $6+ billion valuation… which is basically good enough for me, absent any serious criticisms from industry veterans.

How to Download the DASH Wallet and Put Money In It

This was so easy: (1) Go to the DASH home page and click on “Get Dash”. https://i.imgur.com/9fEks27.png (2) On the next page click “Dash CORE” and it’ll download. https://i.imgur.com/Vg2q0Gu.png (3) Install should be self-explanatory. For Windows just double click the file, for Mac move it to your applications folder first and then run it. It took a while to sync up the wallet to the blockchain - but nowhere near 6 hours like it initially said: https://i.imgur.com/62dyfd0.png After about 30 minutes I got here: https://i.imgur.com/iLSNLp3.png and then, finally after about 1.5 hours total: https://i.imgur.com/win6DMa.png There was still some minor synchronization going on (look at the bottom) but overall the wallet app appeared to be ready to go. The next step would be to buy DASH and put it in my wallet. For that I’m going to withhold a few details - but you know how this works. I went to an exchange, sold some Steem for BTC and then that for DASH, and transferred it over to my wallet. At first the DASH arrived as “pending”: https://i.imgur.com/MvB3lsM.png before switching over and becoming available: https://i.imgur.com/6X7ijfH.png There it is! Now if I want to buy something all I have to do is send it to their address from this wallet. Transactions are quick and easy and the whole process only takes a few hours, mostly to sync the wallet once. After that first sync, the wallet loads up in just a few seconds each time. At this point I was *going to* buy some fancy wine with DASH, which would’ve been a great angle for this article… https://i.imgur.com/l1QBaJV.png Unfortunately it turned out that the retailer is in Canada, not America… :-( If any Canadians are reading this, just know you can get wine for your cryptocurrency. Unlike me, at least right now lol.

Market History

And the survey says… https://i.imgur.com/M77UDqs.png 2017 was a huge year for DASH, just absurd, which makes it hard to know what is coming next. Can the growth continue, or will 2018 be slower as a reaction to the whiplash-levels of growth seen last year? I have no idea!

Final Thoughts on DASH

I’m impressed with everything about DASH. Solid technology, great app, great website, great marketing, and a strong community that continues to spiral upwards. The hype is under control, even if it’s there. In fact I gotta say DASH is way up on my list of coins now. When the time comes for me to diversify into new tokens, I will definitely be looking at this one. What do you think about DASH? https://steemitimages.com/DQmYuuW18gWNZPLC1A53SoZ6CHMYTPL4rraFh4gcJ5DYDKf/follow_heymattsokol.gif https://i.imgur.com/hgkeIwR.jpg?3