Dash (DASH)

Dash

Type	Privacy Coin
Ticker symbol	DASH
Consensus mechanism	Proof of Stake + Proof of Work
Total supply	18,900,000 DASH
Website	https://www.dash.org/

Basics

• Based in: Head quarters of Core are in HK
• Founded in:
• Mainnet release: 19-1-2014

• Dash stands for Digital Cash and aims at bringing cryptocurrencies to the consumer market by allowing very fast transactions required for industries such as retail.

History

• Fka XCoin in January 2014 (1), then rebranded into Darkcoin, just 10 days after the start, then rebranded in Dash in March 2015 (2)
• Uses CryptoNight / but also cloned some of BTC code.

Audits & Exploits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].

Bugs/Exploits

On May 22, 2023, the Dash blockchain halted block production at chain height 1,874,879. As of the time of writing, the current block height stands at 1,875,431. Samuel Westrich, CTO of Dash Core Group, addressed the community: “We are approaching 80% of network updated to v19.1.0,” Westrich tweeted. “Chain locks are forming again." Dash Community added: "Dash did not roll back the blockchain and no transactions were lost. All that happened was the [transaction]’s were delayed being added to the blockchain and the v19 hard fork was postponed.”

Governance

DAO

• Dash is being governed by a DAO. The structure is as followed (2-12-2019):

"Dash Masternode Network -> Trust (In New Zealand) with Trust Protectors (6 directors) and Trustee -> Dash Core Group Inc. with DCG Board (In the USA, Delaware).

The Dash DAO Irrevocable Trust protects the Dash network's assets, such as the code and commit access, from potential bad actors within DCG. A decentralized entity owning all of the shares of a centralized entity.

The Trust Protectors are elected by the Masternode network annually.

If the Dash network ever seizes to function and dissolves, the International Red Cross would become the benefit of any remaining DCG assets."

• Ryan has said he thinks sometimes Decentralized Governance can go too far. In some protocols coin holders decide over whether or not a bit of code should be added to the protocol or not. He thinks you can go way too far with that.

Self Funding Mechanism

• Part of the block reward goes to the decentralized treasury.
• From this summary of their Q3 call (31-10-2020):

"DCG has a strong commitment to not requesting more than 60% of the available budget."

Token

Launch

• No Premine or Presale. But 2 million Dash was mined within first 36 hours of launch (aka instamine). This was 10% - 15% of the supply.

Token allocation

• Dash decreases its coin emission rate by 7.14% every 210240 blocks, which comes out to around every 383.25 days. Dash will continue to emit coins for approximately 192 years before a full year of mining creates less than 1 DASH. After 2209 only 14 more DASH will be created. The last DASH will take 231 years to be generated, starting in 2246 and ending when emission completely stops in 2477.

Tech

• Whitepaper can be found [insert here].
• Code can be viewed [insert here].
• Programming language used:

Transaction Details

• Capacity (TPS):
• Latency:

How it works

• Dash implements a mining algorithm known as X11. According to Ryan Taylor (1-2020):

"In my opinion - and this is just an opinion - we should aim to have X11 hashrate an order of magnitude (10x) or more than the rest of the X11 market combined. ChainLocks and InstantSend are the reason that we are treated by exchanges as "most secure", but perception issues if we had "too low" of a hashrate would likely crop up long before real risks were actually present. So IMO, there is a phycological level we need to maintain more than a mathematical one."

• Proof of Stake (Masternodes) + Proof of Work (Miners)
• 45% block reward to miners, 45% to masternodes. DCG wants to change the block reward allocation away from the traditional 45/45/10 split. Due to ChainLocks, the block reward portion going towards mining “may be excessive compared to the benefits”. Dash reward distribution through the treasury may have a smaller effect on price than a pure mining-based system, where miners dump most of their earnings immediately on exchanges to pay bills. Ryan Taylor proposed (1-2020) new token economics, in which the allocation would change towards more for the masternodes:

"Excluding the proposal funding allocation, the current split is 50/50 miners / masternodes of the block subsidy and transaction fees. I believe that the allocation could very safely move, over a long period of time, to as high as 15/85. However, I don't think a change of that magnitude is needed to capture the majority of the benefit. A reallocation to 25/75 seems more prudent for a few reasons....The reallocation itself would take place over time. A rate of about 1% per quarter....I think we should make the system dynamic in SOME WAY. As discussed in my presentation last month, the rigidity of the current allocation leads to behavioral issues."

• Self funding: 10% of block reward. Has implemented a “treasury system” (first project to do this) where 10% of the transaction fees are pooled towards funding further development of the protocol in a  self-governing system. This is done with superblocks; an allocation via on-chain budget votes. Ryan Taylor proposed (1-2020) new token economics, in which the allocation would change towards more for the fund:

"With a reallocation, it gives us plenty of room to alter the proposal system. I think we could make it more flexible by allowing MNs to approve any amount up to say 20%, but unlike today the remaining amount would be allocated to the masternodes and miners. As an example, if the non-proposal funding were 25% miners and 75% masternodes and the budget approved 8% for the month, the non-proposal funding (92%) would get split 25/75. In other words, the split would vary each month, so a month like this would be 23% miner / 69% masternode / 8% proposals. In another month, it could be 20% / 60% / 20%. In this way, masternodes must truly think a proposal will generate value, because they need to be willing to adjust their own allocation to make it happen. It also means they wouldn't feel the need to "use the entire budget" even on low-value activities. It allows the network to invest when it needs to and reap the benefits if the budget / price grows larger than required to address the network's needs."

Upgrades

• Will migrate to a proof-of-work/proof-of-service hybrid when the Evolution update is implemented. The payment chain with PoW/PoS and the Platform Chain with Proof-of-Service.
• From Cointelegraph (26-7-2020) after a Core Quartly Call:

"The newest updates features document timestamping, an improved DAPI client for better code quality, usability and testability, an improved distribution package, and a platform test suite for developers to use.
Users can expect four more releases before the Dash platform enters a new phase of its product cycle. The testnet is still expected to be delivered by the end of the year."

Staking

• Has masternode system, the first project to do this, (people need to lock up 1000 dash in a node to become one). In order to reach ambitious level of scaling and security, hardware requirements for running a masternode will likely be very high. To answer this challenge, Dash Labs will be working on custom-built, completely open-source hardware specialized for the running of masternodes.
• As of 1-2019 57% of the supply was locked up in about 4900 masternodes. "if you look at after-inflation ROI of operating a masternode, the ROI now is as high as it has ever been. In 2014, returns were above 20%, but inflation was 27% or so. Today, returns are 6-7%, but inflation of the supply is down to 7-8% currently."

Interoperability 

• StakeHound has created a Wrapped Dash token (19-10-2020):

"StakedDASH will be tradable and usable in major DeFi platforms such as UniSwap, Aave, Curve and others, using the Ethereum or Radix networks."

Update (16-3-2021): Dash has finalized its bridge to Ethereum, powered by StakeHound.

Other Details 

• Difficulty cycle, blocks: each block
• Block reward decreases each block according to the formula: BaseReward = (MSupply - A)/2^18, where MSupply = (2^64 - 1) atomic units and A is amount of already generated coins.

Long Living Masternode Quorums (LLMQs) and ChainLocks

• Has what is called Long Living Masternode Quorums (LLMQs) which enables Dash to implement a new protection mechanism against 51% mining attacks. This protection mechanism is called ChainLocks.

"The longest-chain rule is one of the most important parts of Proof of Work based consensus. The idea is that every node should consider the chain with the most accumulated work as the locally active chain (but only if it is also valid by all other consensus rules). The reason for this rule is that otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to find consensus on which chain to extend. Nodes need to find consensus based on limited information, and the only reliable information which is viable for this is the information found from the chain of headers. Using only the accumulated work (calculable from the headers) makes sure that every node can disconnect and reconnect, and still find consensus at any time.

With ChainLocks, this rule is still in effect, but it can be overridden by a valid CLSIG (a P2P message) message. Effectively, only the members of the responsible LLMQ are fully following the longest-chain rule, as they are the ones creating the CLSIG message in collaboration. As the CLSIG message can only be created if enough LLMQ members agree, the presence of the CLSIG message serves as a proof that the referenced block was (or still is) the block resulting in the longest-chain.

This puts quite some trust into CLSIG messages and the Masternode network, but we consider this to be an acceptable tradeoff. The assumption is that the majority of the masternode network is honest, which is basically the same assumption applied to miners in a plain Proof of Work system.

The difference with ChainLocks is that miners AND Masternodes representing 51% of each of the layers would have to collude in order to perform a working attack. And even if an attack succeeded, the attackers would still not be able to cause deep reorganizations, as previous CLSIG messages can’t be invalidated by the attackers. The worst thing that could be achieved is to NOT sign blocks, which would be noticed by all nodes. Also, if any LLMQ with mostly honest masternodes signed a block in-between the attack, all previously unsigned blocks would become fully confirmed as well, making reorganizations for these impossible as well. With the current parameters that we target for LLMQs, an attacker would have to buy at least 60% of all Masternodes to get a realistic chance of success."

Deterministic Masternode List

• "Now, the network uses a single source of truth (the deterministic masternode list) to determine the recipient of the masternode portion of the block reward in a transaction, rather than relying on peer-to-peer messages to work this out. In addition, when quorums of masternodes are used to validate transactions, the quorum is determined by information found on the blockchain itself. This ensures that nodes come to agreement on which masternodes get included in a quorum, because rather than maintain its own masternode list, a node can pull the data from an on-chain, single source of truth."

• The Dash network voted (3-4-2019) to elect trust protectors for the Dash DAO Irrevocable Trust (or the Dash Trust), the New Zealand-based legal entity controlled by the Dash network that allows the network to legally own property.This entity legally owns the Dash Core Group, the largest organization under the Dash decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and the main developer group. The trust’s protectors direct the work of the trustee, who carries out the will of the masternode network, effecting more direct control over the network-owned groups than a simple masternode vote alone could do. The winners of the trust protector election are Pieter Bakhuijzen, Raleigh Barrett, Michael Lewis, Mark Mason, Eric Sammons, and Perry Woodin, representing well-known community members and masternode operators, as well as members from media and outreach group Dash Force and cryptocurrency accounting and compliance firm Node40.

Dash Platform

• Will be released (19-12-2019) on 7 December 2019. Evolution was delayed by 'shifting focus on InstantSend by default and ChainLocks'.From this blog (21-5-2019) post:
• "Evolution, DCG’s vision for upgrading the Dash network, involves several distinct initiatives including Core protocol upgrades and the development of the most user-friendly crypto wallet to date.

In order to facilitate the development of this new wallet, as well as many other use cases, DCG is building Dash Platform, an application development platform leveraging Dash’s masternode network and blockchain. Comprised of two main architectural components, Drive (decentralized storage) and DAPI (decentralized API), these components turn the Dash p2p network into a cloud, through which developers will be able to integrate their applications. These reference implementations are written in Node.js. For our MVP release, the platform will primarily act as a Database as a Service, using data contracts to define custom data structures for applications, storing that application data on our masternode network, and notarizing that data via our blockchain.

Drive

• From this blog (21-5-2019) post:

"Data is uploaded to Drive via state transitions, which are special transactions that describe a transition in your application’s state. A record of your application’s state transitions is stored in Drive, allowing you to view your application data at different points in time. This provides potent functionality for use cases that require high levels of trust between multiple, independent parties. This functionality facilitates the access of records which are secured and verified according to our consensus protocol, rendering them auditable by any involved party. Some example use cases include chain-of-custody, digital rights management, supply chain, property records, and audit management. Your application’s state view is the current state of its data. This data is stored in a MongoDB instance, allowing for quick access. Your application’s historical state transitions are stored in IPFS, which also propagates your application data to other nodes in our network. Consequently, application data is replicated several times over, protecting application data against any individual node downtime in our network."

Smart Contracts

• When asked about Dash it's future smart contract features, Reddit provided the following answers (12-6-2020):

“We have a concept of Data Triggers - some programmable logic (WASM) for document validation but it’s post-MVP feature.

Discussion regarding functions (an analog of smart contracts) is still open so I can’t answer your question at the moment.”

“You can't do everything with Dash you could do with Ethereum and the other way around, it's different. But it will be a lot easier to work with than Ethereum, even for developers.”

DAPI, Dash’s Decentralized API

• From this blog (21-5-2019) post:"Clients will be able to integrate their applications to Dash Platform via DAPI, our distributed, decentralized API. DAPI is an HTTP API exposing JSON-RPC endpoints. Through these endpoints, developers will be able to send and retrieve application data via Drive, as well as query the blockchain, eventually replicating the functionality of Insight through a more developer-friendly interface. In effect, DAPI provides developers with the same access and security of a full node, without the cost and maintenance overhead.

Developers will use DAPI to submit state transitions for storage in Drive. The fees for submitting these state transitions will be comprised of a fixed transaction cost, similar to a normal transaction fee, and a variable cost determined by the size of the data being stored. In a typical p2p network, excessive leeching behavior can drain a network of its speed and efficiency. This free-rider problem is solved through our fee structure, which ensures that masternodes are adequately compensated at a level that supports the demands of the network.

Unlike traditional APIs which have a single point of failure, DAPI allows clients to connect to different instances depending on resource availability in the Dash network. If a masternode goes offline, taking its DAPI instance with it, then clients will be able to seamlessly connect to and retrieve their application data via another instance."

• TLDR (22-10-2019):

"Dash Platform will be running on the master node network rather than the entire one. And that is important for providing scalability and higher-performance. Additionally, it would not expose the payment supporting blockchain to any risks. Developed to reduce the network overload, the new sidechain will lower fees and simplify the fee calculations. This is achievable because the fees will be dependent upon two deterministic elements. And those are data size and complexity."

• From this blog post (18-10-2019)

"Dash Platform is a technology stack (a set of services) for developing decentralized applications.

Initially, we will provide:

• 1. Drive — document-oriented database for storing and querying metadata
  2. Identities — unique identities for users, applications and other entities
  3. Dash Platform Name Service — decentralized and enhanced DNS
  4. DAPI — decentralized HTTP API to communicate with the platform

In order to host and operate these services, Dash Platform will run exclusively on the masternode network. Compared to using the entire Dash network, this is a much more scalable solution because masternodes will be economically incentivized to provide high-quality service. For processing and storing the Platform State (the global platform dataset), the platform needs a byzantine fault-tolerant consensus protocol. This consensus protocol ensures that a quorum (i.e. subset) of masternodes validates and processes the data in a trustless manner."

Takeaway from the Dash Quarterly Call (14-11-2019):

• “At the moment anything will be able to be stored on Platform without restriction, however, in the future there will exist decentralized solutions on how to prune data to exclude illegal and otherwise unwanted material without constituting censorship or centralization.”

• From the Community Q&A - Q3 2019 Summary Call (18-11-2019):

On subtokens on the Platform chain:

"The concept of subtokens is being explored as a potential roadmap item and could be added to Dash Platform in the future. We do believe there is potential to attract additional developers to the project by allowing them to easily bootstrap applications using our infrastructure. In the interim, developers will be able to create apps with Dash-based business models."

"What Dash Platform does allow for is the issuance of tokens in a similar way to SLP on Bitcoin Cash, but in a far more elegant and extensible fashion. Bitcoin Cash relies it on larger OP-return field in order to facilitate that. You'll be able to do much more in a much more customizable way on Dash Platform. So it is absolutely possible to issue tokens. It is possible to issue some type of algorithmic or stable token, custody fund token of some sort upon the Dash blockchain so there will be the ability to do that. I think as far as Dash Core Group goes, I don't think this will be our immediate focus."

On why they will use a separate chain:

"If we use the existing blockchain for state transitions, we are faced with some downsides:

Inefficient Resource Usage

Since state transitions are only needed on masternodes, using the existing chain would unnecessarily consume extra disk space and increase network load for the entire network. This is because we would need miners to process and put state transitions into blocks. Then, the blocks would be propagated across the whole network and stored on all full nodes.

More Expensive, Non-Deterministic State Transition Fees

With miners involved, it would be necessary to pay fees for state transitions to both masternodes (which process and store the data) and miners. Such fees are non-deterministic since the existing blockchain’s fees can vary based on factors such as transaction size and block capacity. Deterministic fees are desirable for businesses and developers that may want to adopt Dash Platform, as they make it possible to calculate costs in advance for budgeting and planning purposes.

Inefficient Data Verification for Light Clients

The verification of platform data for light clients (similar to SPV) is complex and inefficient. Let’s go back to our example with memo.dash. As a client, in order to prove that memos exist in Platform State and weren’t modified by a bad actor, you need to download block headers, merkle proofs and state transitions for each memo.

Poor UX Due to Block Confirmation Times

The block time of 2.5 minutes is not an acceptable user experience (UX) for platform applications. Imagine a user creating a memo and then waiting several minutes for the memo to appear in their application. This wait time is a consequence of the state transition needing to be confirmed on the blockchain. Although we could lock state transitions via a process similar to InstantSend, there is no guarantee that a miner would put them into the next block (or any particular block).

Increased Complexity and Risk to Existing Chain

By introducing state transitions and other platform functionality into the existing chain, we would add more complexity, as well as possible bugs and attack vectors, to the most critical part of our system — payments.

If we introduce an additional blockchain for Dash Platform we solve those problems:

Efficient Resource Usage

Running the Platform Chain exclusively on the masternode network reduces the overall network load and the size of the existing blockchain.

Cheaper, Deterministic State Transition Fees Without miners involved, state transition fees only go to masternodes. This reduces the cost of using Dash Platform and simplifies the fee calculations. So now fees depend only on data size and the complexity of the data processing operations. Since the costs are predefined, businesses and developers will be able to deterministically calculate the price of the state transition before sending it to DAPI.

Easy Data Verification for Light Clients

In order to make data verifiable for light clients, we store Platform State as a merkle forest (multi-level merkle trees²) and save the merkle root in block headers. Going back to our previous example, to verify any memo in memo.dash a client only needs to get a merkle proof and the last header signed by the quorum. This state-centric approach makes verification for light clients much easier than classic SPV. Additionally, blocks become less significant, which means we don’t need to be concerned about blockchain data sharding and can simply keep the most recent blocks.

Faster State Transition Finalization for Better UX

Since it’s a separate blockchain, we’re implementing a consensus protocol that fits the platform requirements. Instead of Proof-of-Work, we can rely on the incentivized masternodes and build a Proof-of-Service based consensus. If a masternode doesn’t provide a service or misbehaves, it will be punished. Thus, utilizing masternode quorums for block proposing and validation allows us to both reduce block time to seconds and ensure absolute finality. This significantly simplifies Platform State and Drive, because it isn’t necessary to handle blockchain reorgs.

Decreased Risk to Core Functionality

Introducing a separate blockchain decouples Dash Platform from the current Dash functionality and builds it as a second layer. The first layer doesn’t know about the second one, so if something happens with the platform it won’t affect the existing blockchain and its payment functionality."

• From this Reddit thread (10-2019):

"the data on the platform is prunable. The second chain is just the tool to maintain the consistency of this data. We also plan to make this chain prunable as well, as the nodes only need to sync the current state of the platform data."

On illegal data on the Platform (11-10-2019):

Ryan: "Is it possible? The answer is yes. Is it economically feasible? Probably not. The cost of transactions will be tied to the size, and certainly things like images and videos in particular would be extremely expensive to support. Beyond that, we are planning to introduce features that enable the data to be pruned, or in a decentralized manner, for data to be eradicated from the network. These are very complicated features. They aren't necessary for us to deliver Evolution or deliver Platform (excuse me). So they'll have to come in a subsequent release. But we are contemplating how this could be done and evaluating alternatives there. I think there there can be some protections in place where the network overwhelmingly objects to hosting certain types of data. It does need to be done in a decentralized fashion though, and that certainly increases the complexity of doing something like that."

• They release new versions every 4 to 6 weeks (24-4-2020). Are now at v0.12. And devs can already build on it. However each update they whipe the system and devs have to backup and upload again. So it’s a testnet for sure. 

• TaoSatoshi says ‘we do not have smart contracts on Dash, but we do have things that go on behind the scenes’. Afterwards he explains ‘Credit System’ which he compares with ETH’s gas.

Oracle Method

• From the DIA announcement (25-3-2021):

"integration of DIA oracles to the Dash platform — a technology stack enabling developers to build decentralised applications on the Dash network — as well as making Dash price and data feeds available to Ethereum and other L1 and L2 protocols through DIA’s open-source oracle platform."

Privacy Method

• From Decrypt (11-11-2020):

"The root of the privacy coin label is half a decade old, when the network launched DarkSend, since relabeled as PrivateSend, Dash’s “brand name for the specific CoinJoin implementation found in Dash’s desktop wallet.” PrivateSend is a process users can implement before a transaction that mixes up wallet holdings so that “an external observer is unable to determine the source of funding.

In Dash’s telling, it hasn’t done much with privacy since. “The primary focus has kind of shifted to speed and usability as opposed to optimizing for privacy,” said Taylor. The current privacy option, he said, “is good enough to keep your nosy neighbor out. Is it good enough to keep the CIA from analyzing your transactions with tools like Chainalysis or CipherTrace?” he continued. “No, but that’s not what this is attempting to accomplish.”"

Their Other Projects

• Has possible Instant transactions called InstaSend
• Dash released automatic InstantSend, which leverages the masternode network to allow everyone to lock-in transactions in under 2 seconds for less than a penny. "The team is also excited to now offer network users automatic instant payments for transactions with 4 or fewer inputs. These transactions represents over 90% of transactions on the Dash network, so almost all users will benefit from this feature — at no additional cost. The system will attempt to “lock” any transaction with 4 or less inputs by default, and remove the additional fee that historically was needed for instant transactions."

Roadmap

• Updated roadmap can be found here (6-1-2022).
• On 18-11-2019 a new roadmap was posted on Twitter.
• In a podcast (14-12-2019) with Ryan he mentioned DCG is planning to increase fees to about 1 cent. He mentions leaving fees as low as they are (2018-2019 they were around 0.0002/0.0003 cents) is dangerous and that their strategy is not build for IoT and micro transactions (which speaks against the new Dapp platform).

• From DashNews (18-10-2019) in which sidechains are introduced (possibly instead of the big block scaling plans from 2017):

"Dash has announced the future creation of a sidechain, Platform Chain, for the upcoming Dash Platform in order to handle data for decentralized applications (DApps) more efficiently."

• From the Community Q&A - Q3 2019 Summary Call (18-11-2019):

On subtokens on the Platform chain:

"The concept of subtokens is being explored as a potential roadmap item and could be added to Dash Platform in the future. We do believe there is potential to attract additional developers to the project by allowing them to easily bootstrap applications using our infrastructure. In the interim, developers will be able to create apps with Dash-based business models."

"What Dash Platform does allow for is the issuance of tokens in a similar way to SLP on Bitcoin Cash, but in a far more elegant and extensible fashion. Bitcoin Cash relies it on larger OP-return field in order to facilitate that. You'll be able to do much more in a much more customizable way on Dash Platform. So it is absolutely possible to issue tokens. It is possible to issue some type of algorithmic or stable token, custody fund token of some sort upon the Dash blockchain so there will be the ability to do that. I think as far as Dash Core Group goes, I don't think this will be our immediate focus."

On the mainnet release:

"As everyone has heard, Dash Platform is gonna hit Evonet later this year. But as Bob said, it's going to be a complex testing phase because the release is huge and complex. So we don't have a certain date when it's going to hit Mainnet yet."

On when Evolution will release:

"Evolution can't be delivered on time because Evolution isn't a product. Evolution is a vision that's made up of multiple products and so if we keep asking when is Evolution going to be delivered, I could answer that it already has, as the foundational components have been delivered, or that it never will, because a vision will always continue to evolve and be completed or grow. So I think we want to start shifting our questions to when will Dash Platform be available, when will DashPay be available, when will specific release numbers of those be available. That will be really helpful for the community overall to start referencing the individual products that make up and comprise the grand vision of what what Evolution is and was."

On why Evolution is late:

"A (Bob): Well, I gave you my soapbox speech before about Evo being a vision as opposed to a specific product. I think that led to a long timeline from original announcement to when the first set of code and product is actually hitting the market. It was announced in early 2016 without a full design but with, you know, an aspiration to develop it, which was great. And a year later there was somewhat of a design at that point in time. Again, all of this was before even the formation of Dash Core Group as an entity. I think understanding that there wasn't a realistic plan put in place when some original timelines and dates were communicated is probably fair to recognize."

On chain analysis:

"companies are not only using on-chain data, they are analyzing communications between nodes (ping times etc). What can we do about this?
A (pasta): All communication between nodes is non encrypted, bitcoin is working on changes a v2 P2P setup which is encrypted. We plan to backport that asap once it is merged into bitcoin (bitcoin works slow, may be a while)."

• Back in 6-2017 Evan Duffield laid out a roadmap for Dash Evolution:

"There are a few new concepts I’d like to outline:

1. Masterblocks : Moving from soft consensus to hard consensus of masternode list
2. Masternode shares : Allowing depositors to earn returns and vote from partial masternodes
3. Scaling to ultra large blocks : All-inclusive plan for building hardware and software to move from 2MB blocks through 400MB blocks
4. State transitions : Tracking changes to DashDrive (Update: has been implemented, see above)
5. Network maintenance functions : Using quorum technology to build administrative functions, akin to a decentralized crontab which updates DashDrive.
6. Governance objects : All objects required for initial launch are determined and working theoretically to store user information securely and efficiently
7. Credit system : A credit/debit system for incremental value charges related to the storage of data and user processing power.
8. New fee structure : Lower fees become economically viable"

• From their blog (10-9-2020):

"DashCore v0.16 is a major release and will be a mandatory upgrade for all users. Version 0.16 introduces the multi-year shift in the allocation of block rewards between masternodes and miners. In addition, this release includes a number of improvements to Dash including performance optimizations, wallet user interface enhancements, greater stability, and numerous enhancements through Bitcoin backports.

The allocation of block rewards — excluding proposal funding — between masternodes and miners is changing from a 50–50 split to a 60–40 split over a multi-year transition period. This change was proposed and approved by the network during the July voting cycle with the primary objective to better stabilize Dash’s store of value properties. The reallocation of rewards will incentivize the formation and retention of masternodes on the Dash network which will in turn slow the growth rate of Dash’s circulating supply.

The reallocation will take place gradually over 4½ years with incremental adjustments to the split of non-treasury funds. The proposed changes will occur every three superblock cycles, approximately once per quarter. After the BIP-9 activation for v0.16, the initial change to the reallocation will occur at the next superblock. Read more."

Pros and Cons

Pros

• As this Reddit users stated (5-2-2020):

1. "Dash has it's governance sorted pretty well, with a treasury system that utilises newly mined Dash each month. This newly mined Dash is distributed to projects who get enough votes via the Dash DAO.
2. Dash transactions are confirmed straight away, and they are able to be re-spent straight away (like physical cash can be).
3. "Interest" (via mining rewards) can be gained by hosting a masternode (1000 Dash required) or being part of a masternodes collateral (shared masternodes).
4. ChainLocks has protected Dash from 51% mining attacks."

Cons

• Had a rocky start with it's instamine.
• People either seem to hate it or love it.
• Has been working on Dash Evolution for years, which makes people doubt if it can live up to it's promises.

Competition

• Dash positions itself as digital cash foremost, therefor it competes against other electronic sound money systems. BCH, BTC and the like.

• It also has a privacy component, and therefor gets compared with Monero, Zcash and it's fork Pivx, a lot.

Team, Funding, Partners

Team

• Protocol upgrades are done by the Dash Core Group (DCG)
• Duffield, Evan, one of first coders, used to be CEO now a advisor and Head of Dash labs
• Schinzel, Holger; Quality Assurance, Automation, Testing
• UdjinM6; Core Developer
• Timothy Flynn; Core Developer
• MooCowMoo; Development / Testing
• Freer, Andy; Evolution Dash Labs Team Lead
• Marley, Nathan; Evolution Developer
• Taylor, Ryan; CEO, used to be Director of Finance
• Wiecko, Robert; project manager
• Pieter Bakhuijzen, Raleigh Barrett, Michael Lewis, Mark Mason, Eric Sammons, and Perry Woodin: Dash Trust Protectors
• Has the Dash Investment Foundation which held it's first elections and the four elected supervisors for the upcoming year (4-8-2019):
  • Amanda Johnson — Amanda B. Johnson
  • Michael Lewis — walter
  • Jan Heinrich Meyer — essra
  • Hytham Abdel-Karim — Unchained

Total costs for the Foundation mentioned are estimated to be $160,000 over a period of 2 years. 

Partnerships

• Partner with Cointelegraph and Blockpay
• Sponsor of many projects. (Crypto Show)
• Has a partnership with BlockchainIntel. "Companies use BlockchainIntel to implement transaction monitoring and establish an automated record keeping system for suspicious activity activity reporting, customer due diligence, and currency transaction reporting. Through BlockchainIntel’s holistic, risk based approach, companies implement policies specific to their firm’s needs. BlockchainIntel’s clients and partners include blockchain companies, financial institutions, exchanges such as eToroX, and law enforcement such as the FBI."

Funding

• Has some funds and institutions investing in Dash related companies:

"BlackRock Joins (18-11-2019) Fidelity in Significantly Investing in Masternode Company Neptune Dash"

Dash Investment Foundation (DIF)

Basics

• "The Dash Investment Foundation provides a financial bridge between Dash’s decentralized stakeholder network and forward-thinking entrepreneurs/businesses The Dash Investment Foundation receives all its funds from the industry-first treasury system directed by Dash’s global Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)"

• Announced in 5-2019:

"Dash Core Group first proposed investigating the creation of a network-controlled investment fund in June of 2018, with the aim of enabling the Dash network to invest in higher-risk opportunities, by enabling proposal owners to issue equity or other assets in consideration of the network funding.

Dash masternode operators will elect the six supervisors that oversee the foundation. Key organizational and operational decisions would be put to the supervisors for approval by the foundation’s directors. Day-to-day operations will remain with the directors and investment manager. The supervisors may consist of virtually anyone trusted by the network to carry out supervisory duties, while the directors would consist of experts with the appropriate skills to oversee the foundation.

Glenn Kennedy from Paradigm Governance Partners and Casey McDonald from Calderwood, are Cayman Islands-based governance professionals. They will serve as the foundation’s initial directors and supervisors. We also need an additional slate of 4 supervisors elected by the network. Starting in the second year, all six supervisors will be elected by the network."

• From another blog (4-6-2019):

"Supervisors will serve for one year. They are eligible for reelection each year and there are not currently restrictions on the number of successive years supervisors may serve."

Investments

• From their twitter (13-7-2021):

Craypay, Dash Retail, Quadency (trading & tools), ReadyRaider (gaming), Valkryie and Sequaradora Digital (financial servies).

• From their twitter (14-7-2021):

"The #Dash Investment Foundation (DIF) @DashInvests has announced that they have begun to invest in the digital asset #RUNE in support and preparation for @ErikVoorhees upcoming @THORChain DEX to provide liquidity for a $RUNE to $DASH trading pair."

Team

• Elected (4-7-2019) supervisors for 2020 are:

Amanda B. Johnson

Michael Lewis — walter

Jan Heinrich Meyer — essra

Hytham Abdel-Karim — Unchained

Worldwide team locations

• Will start teams and offices in Arizona, Europe (CORE), and Asia (Dash Labs) in june 2018
• Has a team centred in Hong Kong, called Dash Labs. This team will be the scientific arm of the project, focusing on research and the development of custom hardware. Evan Duffield and Andy Freer are heading up this team. Dash Labs aims to create the first open-source versions of many different types of hardware.

DCG

• Dash Core Group (DCG) CEO Ryan Taylor announced late last month (4-2019) that the firm has decided to lay off four employees across several business areas – eight percent of its staff – to “reduce costs and align them with the available budget.” DCG seems to have a total of 49 employees currently, according to information on its website.

• The DCG development team is significantly smaller (11-2019) than it was in late 2018 due to funding restrictions. “DCG is running a small monthly deficit, but there is enough in reserves that this is not an issue for some time. DCG is working on a comprehensive plan to improve the economics of the network, meaning price and market cap ranking.” In the quarterly call itself they said they have enough for 2 months, which is 1 month less than their usual goal. 

Dash Latam

• Had a team in Latin America with over 80 people, called Dash Latam "Dash Latam is the premier Dash mass adoption organization in the world, with merchant adoption, consumer adoption and remittance operations in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil and Spain."
• However, they all got their Masternode funding cut off in late 10-2019 due to poor results. "Its latest proposal to keep operations funded, however, suggests efforts were yielding only 60 dash transactions per day spread over 2,000 active merchants. Resources dedicating to funding Dash Latam for three months amounted to nearly $25,000, about 344 dash or 6% of the treasury dedicated to such projects."
• Afterwards, part of the Latam team announced (5-11-2019) it would continue (despite their old CEO having said it would close it's doors) and try to get funding from the Masternodes in the future. This old CEO, George Donnelly, however claimed in an interview (10-11-2019) he would take the Dash Latam team away from Dash and focus on BCH now with his new project called Prosuni. This break brought quite some heated discussions on the surface, most claiming George didn't do what he claimed he did, and that his results were sub-par. Update (7-2-2020): Donnelly has now launched BCH Latam.

 (:

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