The State of Dash -Will the DASH/USD Price Eventually Recover

Like any other cryptocurrency out there, Dash saw its peak in December 2017, when the DASH/USD rate reached more than $1,500. The cryptocurrency market was experiencing a sharp decline afterwards, so was Dash. In July, it was considered the fastest to recover among the top 20 coins, not least due to Chinese traders. Dash showed the further growth in August, but most predictions leaned towards a bearish scenario for its price. Eventually, these forecasts came true but not only for Dash — the whole market plunged into the red. Right now, cryptocurrencies are going through rough times and have lost around $85 billion of the total value within a month.

Will Dash be able to cement its place among the 20 largest cryptocurrencies? And what can help it recover? Let’s discover the potential Dash has and what we can expect from this cryptocurrency in the near future.

Key features of Dash

Dash stands for Digital Cash and is intended to act like real cash and be used worldwide. Being developed on top of the Bitcoin codebase, it improves upon some features that Bitcoin hasn’t managed to enhance yet — scalability, speed, and cheaper transactions. It also offers better privacy; the developers even consider it the core feature of this cryptocurrency. Scalability and speed are ensured due to the increased block size of 2MB that allows for a 2.5-minute confirmation period.

The Dash supply is capped at 18.9 million, and over 8 million units are circulating at the moment. The mining process is similar to that of Bitcoin, where miners act as transaction validators and are in charge of coin issuance. Apart from miners, there are also masternodes that maintain the network. These special servers enable additional functions that help Dash stand out. The following are unique features of this cryptocurrency:

• InstantSend: confirms transactions within a couple of seconds
• PrivateSend: hides the details of a transaction using a mixing service
• Governance and Treasury: allows stakeholders to define the project’s development path
• Evolution: a Dash-based platform aimed at making cryptocurrency transactions as fast as those of PayPal

Dash compared to other coins

As we can see, Dash was designed to solve scalability and privacy issues that the major coins are suffering from. But there are other cryptocurrencies with similar goals, for instance, Litecoin and Zcash. Each has a group of devoted supporters and a well-developed infrastructure to boast of.

Litecoin is the Bitcoin spinoff of sorts, but it is faster and more scalable. Like Dash, it aims at making cryptocurrency payments more adapted to the real world. Truth be told, Litecoin stands a good chance to win in this domain, especially with the Lightning network running on top of it.

Zcash has long been watched by law enforcement agencies due to its unique privacy features. Much like Dash, Zcash offers an option of sending shielded, or anonymous, transactions. The protocol utilizes the principle of so-called Zero-knowledge proofs. All the transactions happening between shielded addresses are hidden and encrypted.

Despite the intense market rivalry, it is still unclear which cryptocurrency will become the leader in this space. Also, there are chances that Bitcoin will come up with new technological solutions and cement its position of the cryptocurrency king. If this eventually happens, nobody will need another coin with the same opportunities and for the same purposes.

Reasons for recovery

One important aspect that might help Dash prosper is fruitful partnerships.

In August 2018, Dash announced the exclusive deal with Kripto Mobile Corporation. This cooperation will potentially result in the launch of Dash-enabled phones that are going to facilitate cryptocurrency deals on the go. Once live, this innovation will certainly attract a much wider audience to Dash.

Further on, in October 2018, Dash entered into partnership with CoinCola, a cryptocurrency trading platform. CoinCola has mostly targeted Asian audience, but now it is expanding into Latin America. The company’s representative sees the cooperation with Dash as an opportunity to go global and refers to the coin itself as the most efficient cryptocurrency in the market.

Just a few days ago, Dash came up with a new partnership that can help it become more usable for regular payments. The ePaymints platform is going to integrate Dash as an alternative to traditional payment solutions.

These actions show that Dash is well on its way to mainstream adoption. And it’s possible that this coin will be actually used like liquid money. Being one of the most cash-like cryptocurrencies, Dash is engaging a lot of merchants — at the moment, more than 3,000 of them accept it as a means of payment.

Future prospects

Although cryptocurrencies are in a weakened state now, the situation can change in an instant as it usually happens in the industry. Losses are inevitable in any market, be it a cryptocurrency market or a traditional stock market, which is also surrounded by investor uncertainty now.

Despite the fact that Dash is struggling to get above $90 now, it still works on expanding its audience and making its way to a universal usage and adoption. Can successful partnerships help Dash recover? They probably could, but you never know though. When it comes to something that is as immature as cryptocurrency — the laws and principles that apply to traditional markets may not necessarily apply to the new asset class. Thus, the future of Dash will largely depend on how the whole cryptocurrency market progresses, what the forthcoming regulations might bring, and whether other cryptos succeed in their technological improvements.