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Dash masternode company Neptune Dash has seen a five-fold price increase since its lows over the winter as other custodial Dash masternode companies have reported increased node counts.

The Canada-based company, which trades publicly on the TSX Venture exchange, has experienced a significant price recovery since its bottom at the pit of the cryptocurrency bear market. Shares traded for as low as $0.03 in December, which increased to a $0.16 valuation recently and $0.15 at time of writing, representing a stock price five times higher than previous lows. The current price represents roughly a third of its all-time high of $0.465 in February of 2018.

Meanwhile, the Dash price has over doubled over the same time period, rising from $69.66 on the 18th of December in 2018 to $165, showing similar, though less dramatic, price movement as that of Neptune Dash. However, the current price represents under a quarter of the February 17th 2018 price of $744, the same day Neptune Dash reached its all-time high stock price. The prices of the two assets do appear to track, though not in exact correlation.

Pooled and custodial masternode counts continue to rise

Custodial companies continue to add to their masternode counts as investment moves into Dash. Neptune Dash, which also operates a pooled masternode service allowing customers with fewer than 1,000 Dash to combine their funds to receive a part of the shared node’s earnings, claims to operate a total of 21 masternodes. Pooled masternode service CrowdNode, meanwhile, also claims to operate 21 masternodes on the behalf of customers, up from 17 in May when the service debuted its voting mechanism, allowing customers to vote for how their shared masternode should vote on Dash treasury proposals. These two companies combined custody 42 masternodes at time of writing, under 1% of the network.

SALT Lending’s considerable Dash collateral

In addition to the pooled masternode services, cryptocurrency lending platform SALT Lending, which allows cryptocurrency holders to take out loans in fiat currency by putting up their digital assets as collateral, has reported a significant use of Dash for loan collateral on the platform. In a recent Dash News podcast, SALT confirmed that Dash was the second-largest collateral holdings on the platform, behind only Bitcoin. This may be due in part to the new offering by the company whereby users can collateralize their masternode for obtaining a loan while still maintaining operator and voting keys, as well as control over the masternode payout address (which can also be sent back to SALT, automatically paying off the loan with recurring payments). Additionally, SALT indicated that the total Dash masternode count held in custody by the company was in the 50-100 masternode range.

Combined with CrowdNode and Neptune Dash counts, SALT puts the known number of masternodes held in custody at over 100. This constitutes about 2% of the current network.