DASH is the native cryptocurrency for Dash (Digital Cash), an open-source blockchain project whose code is copied from Litecoin, which in turn was copied from Bitcoin. Primarily used for simple everyday payments, Dash was built to be a more cost-effective and efficient electronic cash system than its parent, Bitcoin.

Dash was developed by American software developer Evan Duffield under the name darkcoin (also known as XCoin) in January 2014. It was initially focused on preserving privacy for financial transactions, but after rebranding itself to Dash in 2015, the project shifted its focus to ease of use in online commerce. It has become a payment partner with more than 10,000 online retailers and merchants, and has deployed more than 250 Dash-enabled ATMs in the Americas and Europe.

Dash is an inflationary asset with a supply cap of 18.9 million tokens. The rate of Dash rewards for mining is decreased over time at a rate of 7% every year. The last block is expected to be mined around the year 2254.

Dash’s price history follows a similar pattern to Bitcoin because of the strong correlation between the two projects. But there are some differences. In the beginning of March 2017, dash’s price doubled in a single week, reaching a high of close to $60.

Although some early followers of the project on the Bitcoin forum believed that dash’s quick rise was related to a scam, the surge was more likely due to the scarcity of dash on exchanges. It was estimated that only 41,500 dashes were available for trading on major exchanges that week and the illiquidity of the dash market was the real reason for the trading push.

Dash reached its all-time high in December 2017 of $1,642.22. The cryptocurrency’s all-time low of $0.2139 was recorded in February 2014 shortly after the coin was launched.

Dash has been described as a two-tiered blockchain network that uses both miners and masternodes. Like Bitcoin, the Dash network reaches consensus through a proof-of-work mining algorithm, but it also uses an X11 algorithm that executes 11 different hashing functions through a masternode. The masternode layer acts as a transaction mixer and serves as the voting mechanism for Dash’s on-chain governance.

Masternodes are servers run by users who lock up 1,000 or more DASH. They hold full copies of the blockchain and enable advanced functionality on the Dash network, including InstantSend and PrivateSend, in exchange for a share of block rewards. Some 45% of all Dash block rewards are shared proportionally among all masternode operators.

PoW mining on the Dash network works the same as it does on Bitcoin, but it allocates only 45% of block rewards to the miner. Once a block is mined, 45% of the rewards are distributed to masternode hosts and the remaining 10% is allocated to Dash’s decentralized budgeting system. The 10% allocation held in the budgeting system can be used for any purpose voted on by DASH holders using the Dash governance system.

Dash was developed by Duffield as a faster and more privacy-driven alternative to Bitcoin. The project initially launched as XCoin, but Duffield rebranded the name to Darkcoin two weeks later. The Darkcoin white paper was co-authored by Duffield and Kyle Hagan, but Hagan didn’t continue working on the project due to personal issues with Duffield.

In 2015, Dash rebranded to its current name after “Digital Cash” to emphasize its usefulness in online commerce. The Dash Core Group. is the organization that maintains the Dash network. Ryan Taylor stepped in as the CEO of the organization in 2017 following Duffield’s planned departure from the project. Taylor is still CEO.