Dash is a cryptocurrency that was developed as an alternative to Bitcoin. It was created by Evan Duffield and was built on the Bitcoin core code, but with additional features such as privacy and faster transaction speed.

It was released on January 18, 2014 as XCoin and was late renamed Darkcoin before finally being called Dash on March 25, 2015. The developers feel it can solve most of the problems Bitcoin has and currently it’s the fourteenth largest coin by market capitalization, although at one point it was as high as the sixth largest cryptocurrency.

Many people get started and learn about Dash and they wonder if it can be mined, and the answer is yes it can be mined. While it uses the Bitcoin core code, it does not use the same consensus algorithm. Dash uses the X11 algorithm, which is becoming increasingly popular as it supports many of the privacy-centri coins.

When Dash was first released it was possible to mine it using just the GPU in your computer, but those days are gone. ASIC miners have been created that can mine Dash, and now you need far more than a GPU to be profitable mining Dash.

Dash ASIC Hardware



Antminer D3. Source: Bitmain

Bitmain released the Antminer D3 in 2017, which is the most popular Dash miner on the market. It mines the X11 algorithm, which is good if you’re planning on purchasing the hardware, because there are a good number of X11 coins, so you can always switch between coins so you’re always mining the most profitable coin at the time.

The Antminer D3 has hashing power of 17 GH/sec and a power consumption of 900 W. When it was first released you would have had to pay over $2,000 for this ASIC miner, but prices have been falling dramatically and you can get a new Antminer D3 from Bitmain for just $241 (as of July 30, 2018). That’s probably less than you’d spend to build your own GPU rig before the ASIC units were released, so it’s a pretty good deal.

Joining a Dash Pool

Even if you do decide to purchase your own ASIC rig, you might not want to solo mine Dash. Pooling your hashing power with others is a more reliable way to generate Dash on a steady basis. Pool mining smooths out the variability of finding blocks, making the rewards more constant, although the rewards are also smaller.

The official Dash website has a list of 18 different mining pools that can still be used for Dash. They do specify that the list is only for informational purposes, and that none of the services have been evaluated by Dash, and that none of them are endorsed by Dash.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with a review of 18 different services, so I’m going to give you just 5 of the mining pool services that I know are considered to be reliable and trustworthy. In most cases these mining pools can be used for a large variety of coins, they just happen to also offer a Dash mining pool.

What to Look for in a Mining Pool

The features you want to look for in a good Dash mining pool are similar to those of any other cryptocurrency pool. First of all you need to find a trustworthy pool. The pool is paying you based on your contribution to their hash power, and you have to trust that they are being honest about their calculations.

The next thing to look at are the fees. Lower fees mean higher payouts for you. Fortunately most pools have very similar fees, so this shouldn’t be too big of a chore to find a pool with a reasonable fee.

You also need to look at the location of the pool servers. A Chinese pool won’t be much good to you if you aren’t located in China. The same goes for any other location. You need to find a pool that has servers relatively close to your location to maximize your hash power in the network.

5 Top Dash Mining Pools

Given that you are committing your hashing power to a pool operator, you want to make sure that they are known for being honest and have a solid reputation. We have reached out to the community and have come up with the below list of the best DASH mining pools.

MiningPoolHub

MiningPoolHub began as a small mining pool run by a dedicated group of Ethereum enthusiasts, but has since grown to not only one of the largest Ethereum mining pools, but it also includes support for mining roughly three dozen other coins. And one of those is Dash.

Like other global mining pools it has servers in Asia, Europe and North America and a low 0.9% fee. Best of all, the servers in each location are redundant, meaning there’s no need for a backup.



MiningPool Hub DASH Pool Statistics

One feature user’s love is the algorithm switching feature that allows you to mine multiple coins of the same algorithm at the same time. People also love the auto-exchange feature that exchanges your mined coins for another coin you specify. And finally there is an auto algorithm switching feature that will set your account to mine whichever algorithm has the most profitable reward at the time.

Dash ASIC miners are profitable here, and the pool is finding blocks roughly every 150 minutes.

Suprnova

Suprnova is one of the largest and most popular mining pools for Dash. Suprnova also has pools for nearly 4 dozen different coins and servers located all around the world, meaning you’ll never be stuck for a profitable coin to mine. It uses the Proportional (Prop) payment scheme and users love its 0% fees. Like MiningPoolHub above it is also finding blocks roughly every 150 minutes.

Coinmine

Coinmine is another popular choice, especially for privacy-concerned miners since Coinmine allows anonymous mining. It has a 0.1 Dash minimum payout, which is quite low, and uses the PPLNS payment scheme. It also has 0% fees and servers at key locations around the globe.



Coinmine DASH Pool Statistics

It also has roughly 10 times the number of Dash miners that MiningPoolHub and Suprnova have, and finds blocks every 40 minutes on average. While you might think bigger is better, I always advise avoiding the largest mining pools to avoid centralization of mining.

viaBTC

At viaBTC you can choose a PPS payment method, or they also offer pay-per-last-n-shares (PPLNS), which is a very popular payment scheme at mining pools. Either way, there are no transaction fees, and miners are only responsible to pay a small maintenance fee of 4% for PPS payments and 2% for PPLNS payments.



ViaBTC Homepage

Servers are located around the globe, and like Coinmine blocks are found roughly every 40 minutes. viaBTC also offers cloud mining for those that don’t want to deploy their own hardware.

AntPool

AntPool is run by Bitmain, the same company that makes the Antminer D3. As you might guess they have quite a bit of hashing power, and blocks are being found quite quickly.



Antpool DASH Mining Statistics

While they don’t list the average time to find a block they do show the blocks that have been found, and it seems that on average blocks are found every 40 minutes. Currently there are no fees being charged at AntPool, and it supports both PPS or PPLNS payments. Servers are located worldwide.

Conclusion

It’s unfortunate that ASIC miners have removed the ability to mine Dash with pretty much any hardware, but good to see that the price of ASIC miners has dropped enough to make Dash mining still profitable. And if Dash mining did become unprofitable (it has in the past) there are a large variety of coins that use the same X11 algorithm that could be mined instead.

That said, given the need to purchase, setup and maintain an ASIC miner Dash might not be your first choice for mining if you’re just getting started. No worries. You can have a look at one of the other pool mining guides I’ve put together to get an idea of what other coin might be better suited to your experience and needs.

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