Dash (DASH) “Not At Risk Of Shutdown” In Crypto Collapse

In 2018’s crypto bear market, Dash Core Group (DCG), the consortium behind the DASH altcoin, has seemingly gone silent on a public stage, with there being little-to-zero propagation of news regarding the once much-hyped project. And as such, some skeptics have deemed the project “dead.” Yet, in a recent Medium post, Ryan Taylor, CEO of DCG, exclaimed that his startup is “sustainable” and will survive the crash in Bitcoin (BTC) prices.

Dash Core Group continues building in this environment. Read my blog post addressing the situation. https://t.co/7sOxhmwkvd — Ryan Taylor (@RTaylor05) December 7, 2018

In the post, which can only be deemed a ‘wall of text’, Taylor first gave some context to crypto’s recent collapse, calling out the Bitcoin Cash debacle (he called it “FUD”) as a key catalyst. The DCG chief then noted that there a number of startups likely “shutting down quietly, running on fumes, or burning through distressed ICO funds,” before adding that his firm doesn’t fall into this unfortunate category.

Taylor exclaimed that DCG “is not at risk of shutting down anytime soon,” nor has fears of laying off a substantial amount of staff, due to a “significant [capital/fiat] buffer” it has built up for itself to account for crypto’s enamorment with parabolic swings and killer drawdowns. Through the following paragraphs, which were countless, the DASH proponent accentuated the logistics of DCG’s buffer, along with its operations so far and ambitions for the future. And while the topics covered varied wildly, an underlying theme of perseverance and survival was evidently referenced throughout Taylor’s post.

Even in tweets prior to the aforementioned blog, Taylor outlined why Dash’s ecosystem continues to boom. The industry savant drew attention to a number of developments, including booming DASH wallet download statistics, strong trading volume, and a recent successful network stress test. Keeping this all in mind, the prominent cryptocurrency advocate, concluding his comments on the matter, wrote:

In short, the network keeps growing despite the price declines and the reduced speculation. Proud to see the strategy working on the metrics that determine long-term success. Heads down… we are getting there! At the time of writing, DASH is up to $77.15 U.S. dollars a piece, with the asset posting a jaw-dropping 11.5% in the past 24 hours.

Not All Crypto Startups Have Survived The Massacre

While DCG seems slated to survive, or even thrive in the ~85% market decline, not all startups and prominent upstarts in this ecosystem have been all too lucky.

As reported by Ethereum World News previously, ETCDEV, an essential player in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem, announced its closure on December 3rd, 2018. Through a tweet, Igor Artamonov, the founder and chief technology officer of the prominent development consortium, wrote:

Unfortunately ETCDEV cannot continue to work in the current situation and has to announce shutdown of our current activities pic.twitter.com/N6xWnpBNJJ — Emerald (@getemerald) December 3, 2018

Although the ETCDEV executive cited a lack of sustainable financing, this message comes just days after Artamonov released a Medium article lambasting one of his peers for being a “Trojan Horse” for another team. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that Ethereum Classic (ETC) remains heavily wounded after this occurrence, as the project lost its primary development team.

The sad collapse of ETCDEV comes just days after Steemit, the company behind the (somewhat) decentralized social media platform that shares its name, revealed it was undergoing a business reorganization, purging 70% of its employees.

Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, Ned Scott, CEO of Steemit, said on the matter:

“While we were building up our team over the last months, we had been relying on projections of basically a higher bottom for the market… Since that’s no longer there we’ve been forced to lay off more than 70% of our organization.”

He explained that as Steemit’s top brass met, amid worsening market conditions, it became logical that a staff restructuring at the private startup was necessary. Interestingly, Scott failed to divulge an exact headcount pre- and post-purge, making it difficult to discern how many were affected.

SpankChain, an adult entertainment platform centered around blockchain, recently saw its CEO take to Reddit to announce that it, as well as Steemit, had downsized drastically. The project head noted that the SpankChain project now hires a mere eight individuals, and has reduced its burn rate from $200,000 to $80,000 per month.

Title Image Courtesy of Ryan Graybill on Unsplash