[Review/Compare] Dash. Score = +93

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice but only provided for information purposes. Although I will do my best I cannot guarantee the accuracy of information in this document.

Invested potential conflict of interest, i.e. do I own more than a tiny amount used for testing purposes. I will attempt to be impartial regardless of whether I own the coin or not. No

Currency: Dash

Previous Names: Xcoin 18/1/2014 – 28/1/2014
Dark Coin 21/1/2014 – 25/3/2015

Short Summary of Intent: Dash is short for Digital Cash. A common catchphrase used is a currency so simple your grandmother could use it. Their goal is to have a very easy to use cryptocurrency that offers privacy.

Code: DASH

Market Cap: 4,776,000,000

Market Cap Updated: 28/02/2018

Coinmarketcap.com Ranking: 11

Coinmarketcap.com Ranking Last Updated: 28/02/2018

Market Cap Score: +6

Trading Volume: 2,845,000,000

Trading Volume Last Updated: 28/02/2018

Trading Volume Score: +3

Pow/POS/Other: POW/POS Hybrid with 45% block reward going to POW, 45% going to POS and the remaining 10% to a treasury.

POW algorithm if applicable: X11

Block Time (seconds): 160

Block Size: 2mb

Annual Inflation Rate: 10.5%

Date inflation rate updated: 28/02/2018

Future Inflation rate declines: Yes

Inflation Rate Score: +7

Circulating Coin Supply: 7,910,000

Date coin supply updated: 28/02/2018

Max Coin Supply (Jan 2100 if infinite): 18,900,000

Circulating Supply as a percentage of max: 42%

Score for circulating percentage: +0

Premine as a percentage of max supply: There was no "premine" for Dash, however, there was a supposedly accidental "instamine" due to a bug that I am not convinced was accidental. I am going to count this instamine as a premine. It is estimated the value of the coins issued in the instamine is around 15% of what the total supply will be.

Score for premine percentage: +6

Privacy Currently: Yes

Privacy Planned: N/A

Privacy Method: Currently PrivateSend which is coin mixing.

Privacy Strength: Am going to class it as Mid for now, it has not been broken but there are some usability issues around it in that you need to mix the coins prior to making a transaction.

Privacy Score: +7

Centralization: 3:
-Dash has a series of masternodes that there is no doubt the early on miners own many of. However, I dont believe there are a couple of owners with 99% of the masternodes or anything as extreme as that however it could easily be more than 50% of nodes in the hands of 10 people or less.
-The network of Dash masternodes appears to be reasonably geographically decentralized.
-Because the Dash masternodes pay out in Dash, and an amount of Dash (1000) is required to run a masternode there is an argument that this will allow the "rich to get richer" and increase centralization over time. Virtually all proof of stake coins have this mechanism baked in however and I'm not sure there is an easy way around it.
-Holders of Masternodes are incentivized not to attack the network by virtue that doing so will lower the value of the Dash they hold.

Centralization Score: +4

Team: Dash has 48 team members listed on their website. Due to the treasury system and the current price of Dash they are easily making enough money, over $100,000 per day total from the treasury system, to pay at least 10 of them full time.

Team Funded: Team is funded by Dash from the Dash treasury system.

Team Score: +10

Start Date: 18/01/2014

Start Date Score: +6

Transactions per second: 26 (Theoretical maximum over 50)

Transactions second layer or side chains currently implemented?: No

Transaction Fee Average (USD): 0.45

Transaction Fee Date Updated: 28/02/2018

Transactions Score: +2

Type: Currency

Degree of completion: 3: Minimum viable product, few bugs, reasonable amount of features. The Dash team is currently working on what they call "Dash Evolution". Once that is released if successful this will be upgraded to 4. They claim at the moment Dash Evolution will be released mid 2018 but this has already been pushed back several times.

Completion last updated: 28/02/2018

Completion Score: +6

Open Source: Yes, however, code being worked on (such as Evolution) is not released. Because of how much code is unreleased I will dock 50% from the open source bonus

Open Source Score: +10

Governance: It is my understanding that Dash masternodes have ultimate say over the version of the code being run as they can reject blocks created using older version of software.
Masternodes are also in control of how the Dash treasury is spent.
I am in the middle between whether it is too centralized to be considered well governed by my metrics or if its OK. I am going to give it 50% of the points.

Treasury System: Dash has a 10% treasury.

Governance and Treasury score: +8

Make Sense for Blockchain: +0, This is a currency coins, it makes sense to have cryptocurrencies on a blockchain.

Current Development Rate: 5: Very active development. The Dash treasury system allows for a good number of paid developers to work on the code.

Date development rate updated: 1/02/2018

Development Rate Score: +10

Risk of security breach: To my knowledge there are no significant security vulnerabilities with Dash other than those presented by the centralization of masternodes.
I don't consider this a critical issue as masternode holders have incentive not to destroy their own holdings.
Dash does have a bug bounty valued up to $10,000 available for those who do find issues with the code.

Security Score: -2

Wallet tested and working with date: Tested the Dash Core wallet found at dash.org. 1/03/2018

Wallet Comments: It was easy to use, easy to install and looked professional. The private send feature isn't obvious at the start but its also not too hard to find. Wallet took a couple of hours to synchronize with the network.

Wallet Score: +5
Real World Usage (Other than investment and speculation): Dash has a reasonable marketing budget and I as always this one involves a bit of guess work but I am going to assume it has a reasonable amount of real world use at the moment.

Usage Score: +10

Biggest fish in the pond?: As I write this today it is the largest currency coin with privacy features. Monero is very close and has been above Dash in the past.

Biggest fish score: +10

Our Brief Comments: Dash, formerly Xcoin had beginnings that I would categorize as a "bit dodgy" to say the least. Firstly it was launched earlier than planned even after Evan had stated the coin would not be launched that day, then there was an alleged "bug" in the code that increase the coin emission rate enormously allowing around 2 million coins to be mined in the first 24 hours.

On top of all of this when Xcoin went to DarkCoin the total coin supply went from approx 84,000,000 down to approx 19,000,000 making the instamine more significant.

Evan is no longer leading the coin, he has been replaced by Ryan Taylor. They have been trying to put all this behind them (I suspect part of the reason for the coin re-names) and maybe it is in the past. However, the outcome of the above is an increased level of centralization and that will always tarnish the coin for me so I am going to -20points.

The coin should have been re-launched within a couple of days after the initial launch IMO.

I believe Dash was the first currency with a treasury system which allowed them to have a marketing budget that they have used to good effect, I am going to +5 for being the first with a treasury, a feature that many other coins have gone on to copy.

Comments score modifier: -15

Total Score/Rating: +93

Website: https://www.dash.org

Other social media links: https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay
https://www.facebook.com/DashPay/
https://twitter.com/dashpay
https://discordapp.com/9z8zX5j

Biggest Exchange: https://hitbtc.com

Biggest Exchange last updated: 1/03/2018

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_(cryptocurrency)
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dash/
https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/dash/overview
https://bitinfocharts.com/dash/
https://www.dashforcenews.com/dash-12-2-update-doubles-block-size-lowers-fees-bitcoins-segwit2x-fails/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RpLd87PTs65sz8USrrXwGRoVGVbzaC-nunErEtGSJoE/edit#gid=0
https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OC/pages/19759164/Dash+Instamine+Issue+Clarification
https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/
https://bitinfocharts.com
https://www.dash.org/forum
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1443867.0
https://steemit.com/crypocurrencies/@jabba-q/dash-decentralized-governance-or-centralized-tyranny-of-the-few
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7lrtre/explain_to_me_how_dash_is_not_centralized/
https://medium.com/@omiros23/evans-and-dash-s-scam-story-add1f16528ae
https://dashdot.io/alpha/index_118.html?page_id=118
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=421615.20
https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DOC/pages/56655887/Mining+vs.+Masternode
https://coinsutra.com/dash-cryptocurrency/
https://bugcrowd.com/dashdigitalcash

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