This Week In Dash: July 1st

This week continues to be another impressive week with new network developments, integrations, and overall news that advances Dash towards becoming Digital Cash. Continue reading below to get a summary of the week.

Dash Network Developments of the Week:

• Dash Activates ChainLocks 51% Attack Protection, Becomes Most Secure Decentralized Currency?: This week, the last two sporks, or multi-phased forks, of Dash version 0.14 were activated which introduces two evolutionary features. The first, new LLMQ-based InstantSend, which enables all Dash transactions to be both instantly confirmed and instantly able to be respent. Second, ChainLocks was activated, which protects the network against 51% mining attacks by leveraging LLMQs and the masternode network. These upgrades make Dash have a significant advantage over other coins, even Bitcoin, for being extremely secure and also easily and cheaply spendable.
• Dash Investment Foundation Elects Supervisors, Charts New Course for Cryptocurrency Funding: The Dash Investment Foundation was created to enable the Dash network to take ownership in projects it invests in rather than only a grant-style system with the DAO Treasury, but still be decentralized. Overseeing the day-to-day operations and directors will be the six supervisors, whom are elected each year. However, since two supervisors had to be appointed at the creation of the DIF, only four supervisors were elected this year and they are Amanda Johnson  (Amanda B. Johnson), Michael Lewis  (walter), Jan Heinrich Meyer  (essra), and Hytham Abdel-Karim  (Unchained).
• Dash Transactions and Active Addresses Surpass Litecoin in Gradual “Flippening”: Dash, with 30,189 transactions, has surpassed the 24 hour transaction count of Litecoin, with 26,830 transactions. While, the flip has only occurred for a few days, the disparity has been building for months. Additionally, Dash’s median transaction fees have remained low, less than one cent, compared to the median transaction fee of Litecoin, which is around 2.1 cents or over 30 times higher. Additionally, Dash’s active address count remains high at 107,318 active addresses in the last 24 hours compared to 66,007 for Litecoin. Plus, Dash is more decentralized than Litecoin with the top 10 Dash addresses control 6% of the coin supply vs. 10% for Litecoin and the top 1,000 addresses of Dash containing 29% of the supply, compared to 64.1% for Litecoin. The discrepancy brings attention to the recent innovations that Dash is achieving that catalyzes wider adoption, such as LLMQ-based InstantSend and ChainLocks.

Dash Integration of the Week:

• Dcoin Exchange Lists Dash, Enhances Liquidity: Dcoin, a Top 30 cryptocurrency exchange on CoinMarketCap and based out of Singapore with global services, integrated Dash on July 3rd. Dash will be paired with USDT and Dcoin’s website lists that the Maker and Taker fees are 0.2% of the transaction amount. Dcoin also has single withdrawal minimum amounts and their associated fees for each coin they list, but Dash’s withdrawal amounts and fees are not yet listed.

Dash Core Group Project Updates of the Week:

Here’s an update from Liz Robuck, Chief Project Owner, of what’s going on at Dash Core Group this week.

• 🚀 ChainLocks and LLMQ-Based IS sporks activated
• 🐝 Dash Core v0.14.0.2 released — minor bug fixes for reindexing/re-syncing issues, non-mandatory update
• 💬 State transition concurrency research for Dash Platform
• 📜 Created first draft of Identities DIP
• 🖼 Updated Profile screen and tweaked designs for Pay screen
• 📱 Added support for Dash Core v0.14 on DashWallet (iOS + Android)

General News of the Week:

• Monero Dev FluffyPony Imitates Dash Masternodes With Tari Project: At MoneroKon 2019, Riccardo “fluffypony” Spagni talked about Tari, a new project he is working on that is meant to supplement Monero with more easily usable and buildable features than Monero, and utilizes “Validator nodes”, which fluffypony said “you can think of it like Dash Masternode”. Fluffypony has been a notable critic of Dash, and in particular, Masternodes, which makes his implementation of them all the more surprising. Fluffypony also mentioned goals like pursuing better UI/UX and reaching outside of the cryptocurrency community for new projects, which Dash has already been pursuing with the DashPay Wallet, Evolution, and the Dash Investment Foundation.
• Coinbase Research Shows US Crypto Adoption Growing, Omits Dash and New Hampshire: Coinbase released new research for 10 US states that showed there is increased enthusiasm surrounding cryptocurrencies and that people view it as a new way to participate in the financial system. However, neither Dash nor New Hampshire was included in the study, which is confusing since Dash has been one of the top cryptocurrencies seeing real world adoption around the globe and New Hampshire is one of those concentrations, being nicknamed the “crypto mecca” in the US.
• Facebook/Instagram Go Down Showing Need for Robust, Decentralized Infrastructure: Facebook, Instagram, and encrypted messaging app WhatsApp went down for a period of time this week that left users frustrated. The event highlights the issues with centralized services that have single points of failure and this comes as Facebook has recently been releasing information on its cryptocurrency project, Libra. Dash has been working on its DAPI and Dash Drive, which could prove to be another way to build a decentralized communication or social network platform. Additionally, the outages send reminders of Bitcoin being effectively down with transaction fees that often spike to significant levels that make small purchases uneconomical.
• Coinfirm Partners with Ripple to Identify Cryptocurrency Transactions Passed Through Coin Mixers: Coinfirm has developed a way to identifying if a cryptocurrency transaction has passed through a mixer and its associated AML risk level on a scale from 0 to 99, with 99 being the highest risk for money laundering. They will be partnering with Ripple to help ensure that transactions on their services are AML complaint. Coinfirm’s CEO views this as a compromise since they will not be collecting any personal identifying information about senders. However, it still poses a risk for individuals that are fearful of their transactions either being tracked or eventual shut out, potentially for innocent reasons if Coinfirm’s algorithms are not calibrated correctly.
• Bank for International Settlements’ Head Augustin Carstens Reverses Opinion to Favor Cryptocurrency: The head of the central bank of banks, Augustin Carstens, has previously denounced cryptocurrency calling it a ponzi scheme, a bubble, and that young people should stop trying to create money. He even suggested that central banks not pursue digital versions of their fiat currency, but he now says that they are working on it and supporting their efforts.

Dash Media of the Week:

• Dash News Video Recap – Dash Investment Foundation, Brave Browser, CrowdNode, Blox, SEC, SALT Lending & More!: If you missed last week’s awesome Dash news, make sure to get your quick recap from Dash News presenter, Heidi Chakos!
• Dash Podcast 111 – Feat. Elizabeth Robuck Dash Core Group Chief Product Owner: This week, the guys welcome back Liz Robuck, the Chief Product Owner at Dash Core Group, to discuss recent developments in the Dash code. One of the top things she has been working on is the value proposition of the Dash Platform and how to position it in the market against other blockchain and non-blockchain platforms. They also went into discussing the consumer demand importance of LLMQ-based InstantSend that enables transaction confirmations in seconds that also becomes instantly respendable and ChainLocks making the network significantly more secure against 51% attacks. Liz also talks about how Dash Platform functions as a Distributed Cloud Database As A Service or a Blockchain As A Service and contrasts it with Ethereum where instead of users having to learn solidity, they can simply use languages that they already know. Make sure to tune in to get this valuable knowledge.

Dash’s key network and community improvements are enabling wider adoption of Dash, which benefits the cryptocurrency space. Additionally, other cryptocurrency projects are increasingly copying Dash’s innovations for their own projects, which is in the spirit of open-source projects, but it also recognizes Dash as one of the key innovators in the space and bodes well for greater future adoption. Make sure to follow Dash News on social media to witness these innovations as they happen!