Dash as a store of value

This begins by creating an adequate store of value. For many developing countries, hyperinflation is a problem that has had a lasting impact on financial stability. In Venezuela, for example, the national currency, the Bolivar, has undergone inflation rates of more than 40,000%. Socialist President Nicolás Maduro recently announced measures mandated by the state to devalue the currency by as much as 95%, leaving an estimated 87% of citizens below the poverty line. Venezuela is just one example. Turkey recently announced a 24.52% increase in its Consumer Price Index, rising by 6.3% to its highest point in 15 years. Unfortunately, both countries are indicative of a larger, and more ominous trend: Financial stability is increasingly difficult to attain in today’s uncertain economic climate, and it’s the general public that suffers as a result.

Low volatility, low transaction fees, and high level decentralization

Conversely, Dash’s low volatility and minimized transaction fees make it a prime alternative for individuals who cannot afford to operate using inflated currency. This is because Dash isn’t connected to anyone centralized entity, meaning that it’s completely unrestricted by shifting international sentiments. Moreover, transactions on the Dash blockchain are almost completely free of cross-border transaction fees, which can represent astronomical costs for individuals depending on remittance payments from abroad. Recently, Dash underwent a preliminary stress test to see how the infrastructure would interact with high-volume transactions. Over a 24-hour period, Dash was able to complete half a million transactions with median transaction times at under a cent. It’s results like this that are starting to catch the attention of citizens in Venezuela, where more than 1000 retailers have already committed to using the cryptocurrency, with an extra 200 signing up per month.

Two-tiered decentralized governance

While this popularity is certainly a welcome sign for future growth, it’s nothing without efficient and dependable scalability. That’s why Dash has instituted a first-of-its-kind two-tiered decentralized governance infrastructure that ensures that expanding size and scale doesn’t come at the expense of efficiency. It works as follows. The first tier is comprised of a mining layer, where miners validate transactions for 45% of the mining reward. The second tier is comprised of Masternodes, who keep the platform up-and-running by staking their involvement in return for another 45%. While most Proof of Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies depend solely on miners to validate transactions, this “hybrid” Masternode layer allows Dash to successfully implement one of its most exciting features, InstantSend, where payments are verified at a small fraction of the time of its competitors. Whereas Bitcoin might take up to 40 minutes to process one transaction, InstantSend’s processing platform on Dash can facilitate a given transaction in seconds.