The second half of 2018 will be the time where blockchain really starts to shine while going mainstream. May 31st is the day of Tron MainNet which is going to be a huge event in the crypto-sphere and it's going to be followed by EOS MainNet which is pretty much the biggest crowdfunded project in the history of mankind and it's worth almost 10 Billion USD. If the MaiNet launch of 2 multi-billion-dollar projects isn't enough I can say that there are many more great things coming. I talked about Utrum dICO on the Komodo Blockchain and I've also talked about Dash Evolution. Let's look into that a bit more.

Dash as The Second Coming of Bitcoin

The blockchain revolution was pushed into existence by this whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf and BTC core group got too hooked on a spam prevention method (1MB block size limit) and made their own cult. I came into the cryptocurrency space a little late and by the that time BTC was looking like dial-up internet. It was a working and successful prof of concept-prototype. Currently what is known as Bitcoin Cash (which is actually performing much better than BTC) is the closest thing to "Bitcoin" as the whitepaper descries. But if you know anything about the tech, you should realize that BTC won't be a real world currency and even Lightning Network isn't going to help. Why? In free markets, the better an cheaper always wins. That's when Dash comes in. That's when Evolution comes in

Dash Evolution will be the first user-friendly and scalable digital currency platform suitable for mass adoption. Because this is such an ambitious goal, we’ve created a detailed roadmap to guide development. Evolution will be launched in three stages. Each release will increase the processing power, ease of use, feature set, and scalability of the network.

We intend to increase the user capacity of the network by an order of magnitude with each new stage of development. Furthermore, because of increases in the amount of available budget funding, we will be able to grow the development team rapidly. We plan to double the number of developers with each release, allowing us to accelerate the implementation of each phase.

The quotes are from OFFICIAL DASH ROADMAP Version 2.2 written by Evan Duffield and Andy Freer (Dash Core CTO) and the whole project is funded by its treasury to the tune of several million dollars per month making Dash the best funded "Currency" with the ability to hire the best developers and engage in massive marketing events if needed.

DashDrive will be implemented using software called IPFS, a user-friendly and popular P2P file system which will automatically handle most of the network’s sharing, redundancy and syncing operations. IPFS writes will utilize masternode quorums for security. DashDrive is an internal facing system that stores user objects within the network in a decentralized way. There is no public-facing system for storage of non-Dash related information. DashDrive is not a replacement for consumer and enterprise applications like Dropbox; it’s a mechanism to allow smooth functioning of the network.

Th thing that gives me the most hope about Dash is that it is customer-centric. In other words it is made to be used and that usability is what would eventually cement the value of the product. Dash is always doing new things and pushing things forward. They were the first Decentralized Autonomoous organization and they were the first to create instant transaction that are confirmed in 1.3 seconds which is much faster than Visa or MasterCard. From what I know only EOS would be able to give faster confirmations. But Dash isn't without problems either. PoW is tried, tested and safe. But it takes so much energy. Dash is taking steps against centralization. But even if they achieve it, it's not very green. So much electricity would be used purely for the sake of security.

We would also like to announce the creation of a new team to be centered 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. Our goal is to help the digital currency space to remain open and transparent, while reducing the economic advantages of closed-source proprietary technology. For example, advanced open-source ASICs would eliminate most of the advantages of privately-developed ASICs. As a result, mining centralization could be significantly reduced. All economic actors will have a level playing field, at least with respect to hardware solutions.

Dash Evolution MainNet release is set for June 2018

In Evolution, you will be able to connect directly with merchants to make purchases or even setup auto debits to pay for subscription services. Every merchant that integrates Dash will be searchable on the blockchain, and you will be able to rate purchases so the community can decide which vendors are providing quality products and services.

There is going to be 3 versions of Dash Evolution each improving the usability and functinality of Dash. Following is the list for Version 1 which is going to be released in June.(The LiveNet was released in February)

• Public DashPay, DAPI, DashDrive, DashCore v13.0 release
• Quorum-based DAPI implementation
• Governance object support for users, groups, accounts
• State transitions
• Encryption of object data
• Offices in Arizona, Europe (CORE), and Asia (Dash Labs)
• Age-based quorums
• IPFS DashDrive implementation / Limited sharding ability
• Official user-friendly Wallet
• Masternode blocks
• Multi-key spork technology

Just answer 1 question: Do you see your parents or those friends who weren't smart enough to get into crypto using this product?

That's all you need to ask. If Bitcoin was dial-up internet then Dash is Asymmetric digital subscriber line. I don't have some crystal ball to say what the future would look like. but I know that BTC was the past and that Dash is the present. As I mentioned in my post Lessons from Dash community Vs PIVX: How to act like the Adult in the room and stop the pointless hostility to embrace the Currency Competition Dash welcomes competition and understand that they are going to win the present because they did things better than their competitors and they are giving their best to stay in the frontiers trough free market competition.

Here is another interesting fact

Dash use a POS second layer where each masternode has lo lock 1000 Dash. The maximum supply for Dash is 18,900,000 an current circulating supply is 8,026,495. Dash has consistently kept its masternode count over 4700 which means about 60% of Dash is locked up. That's something huge. It shows long term ability and trust in the project and it also brings down the supply in case of a price hike. When Dash price quadrupled few months ago, the masternode count wasn't affected. The owners are getting Dash which they could sell and they already have some sunk cost when it comes to hardware.

An Accurate take on Why Dash isn't #1 "Currency" yet

The story is actually much like Bitshares DEX or STEEM. BTC core and several other groups just don't connect with alternative methods. A great deal of things I have to say were summed up in this article.

f you’ve been around a while, you’ll have noticed that Dash is the black sheep of the cryptocurrency world. Like Ron Paul during his US presidential runs, Dash consistently remains excluded, ignored, and derided in favor of much smaller, less developed, and less promising projects. You can almost feel the room go cold when you mention your Dash fandom in a group of Bitcoiners. What a buzzkill.

The cryptocurrency movement started as a fringe group populated by old-school cypherpunks and crazy crypto-anarchists. This initial group of hardcore adherents are what catapulted Bitcoin from a random underground project to the forefront of the world stage. Though its presence and name brand has grown significantly since then, the core of its user base still pays homage to these original qualities. Bitcoin’s civil war certainly didn’t help, with the Core/Blockstream side appealing constantly and heavily to a sense of cypherpunk social identity. This has extended to the rest of the core group of cryptocurrencies and their communities. We have exceptions like Dash and Bitcoin Cash, but the existence of dissent doesn’t negate the fact that the predominant techno-clique overwhelmingly won out.

This is anything but customer-centric. When a crypto project appeals to mass consumers, it doesn't sit well with these blockchain equivalent of ivory tower academics who don't get how the real world works. Real world free markets are all about cheaper and better. There were PDAs and touch screen before iPhone. But Apple Inc built things in a way everybody could use and now smartphones are used more than Personal Computers.

Following the theme of isolated social group, there’s an overt hostility over any attempt to appeal to the average person. The prevailing Bitcoiner sentiment is thus: “You normies made fun of us for years, but now that we’re rich and powerful, now you have to come to us if you want some of our success.”

Speaking of success, which crypto project can claim to have sponsored something like this without taking a single donation?

Results speak louder than anything and everything and that's exactly what Dash has got. BTC is stuck going nowhere and Dash is making crypto accessible for everyone starting mid 2018 all the while Tron and EOS are releasing their MainNet. This is an easy to catch clear as day ATH (All Time High) scenario. Don't forget that STEEM used to worth less than a dollar few months ago. Look at the fundamentals and invest wisely.