Dash or Litecoin – Which is Better?

UPDATE 2017-02-27 3:45 PST: As of the publishing of this article; DASH currency has reached another new All-Time-High of $20.04 as seen on CoinMarketCap.com and $20.52 as of 12:25AM PST Saturday

Dash and Litecoin may not be as famous as Bitcoin, but they certainly have stood their ground over the last couple of years and gained a loyal following along the way.

Both have bright futures if they apply the correct methods at the right times, but to find out which may be better as a long-term investment, we will have to look into them more.

Which Coin is the Best Investment, and Which is the Most Ambitious?

Dash, which stands for digital cash, hasn’t always had that title. It was originally Darkcoin, but since efforts to rebrand the currency came into action, Darkcoin changed to Dash in early 2015.

Over the past year, Dash has tried to lose its shadowy image that Darkcoin held, aiming towards the mainstream markets for potential global usage.

Dash has an excellent marketing team, with some saying it sets the standard for how all cryptocurrencies (including Bitcoin) should market themselves. Dash aims to bridge the gap between tech enthusiasts and the everyday person, something that Bitcoin, Litecoin, and many other coins have struggled with.

What Makes Dash Great?

There are numerous reasons as to why Dash’s community loves this innovative coin so much, one of which is Dash’s transaction speed.

The Dash community prides themselves on their ability to solve usage and scaling problems, while other popular digital currencies are still bickering over which route to take.

InstantSend

This enables users to send and receive Dash coins almost instantly, something that Bitcoin and Litecoin can’t currently do.

Dash’s team is creating innovative developments, such as master nodes. When a user sends Dash using InstantSend, the transaction pings other master nodes throughout the network. The transaction then becomes locked on ten nodes to cleverly avoid double-spending, with any conflicting transactions blocked and rejected.

InstantX was rebranded to InstantSend in June 2016. Branding and Dash go hand in hand, which shows it is attempting to look professional, trustworthy, and user-friendly to everyone in and out of the cryptocurrency industry!

As we speak, updates are happening to prepare Dash for “Dash Evolution.” This will enable Dash to be easily used by people from all backgrounds. As Amanda says, “Dash will be so easy to use, your Grandma will be able to use it!”

PrivateSend

This is the feature that gives Dash its anonymous edge. How this works is the clever master nodes mix the transactions together, making it increasingly harder to trace users’ transactions, giving a level of privacy for Dash users.

Users can increase the anonymity by choosing how times the transactions are mixed. For example, the user can choose five, eight, or more rounds of mixing per transaction, depending on the requirements of the user themselves.

Although the non-tech savvy person may not use this feature as much, it is still a great feature for those who are more intrigued by the technical aspects of Dash and blockchain in general.

For more information on privacy-based coins, check out a previous article I wrote titled ”Battle of the Anonymous Coins” here.

The decentralized governance system Dash uses has attracted numerous users, investors, and developers.

This works by each master node operator having the ability to give one vote on each governance proposal, making the process completely decentralized and fair.

At the time of writing, there are over 4,000 running master nodes. To own and use one, an amount of 1,000 Dash must be given.

This is a type of network collateral to join the master node network, with the goal being to stop attacks and dishonesty within the network.

By implementing clever features, Dash has overtaken Ethereum Classic and now sits as the #6 currency. Dash could start giving Monero a run for its money. With high consistent volume and a large demand, we could see great things from Dash!

Check out Dash’s very own Amanda Johnson on Crush The Street here .

What Makes Litecoin Great?

Litecoin is currently the #4 currency. Created by Charlie Lee in late 2011, it is one of the oldest of the digital currencies, and one of the most trusted by developers, users, and investors alike.

Dubbed the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, Litecoin has stood the test of time and survived many pumps and dumps of other coins. It has stayed in the top 10 for years, with high volume and an extremely dedicated and expanding community.

In China, Litecoin is considered the #2 currency, rather than Ethereum. This is what could explain Litecoin’s high and constantly solid volume, and it also shows people are using the coin and there is a demand for it.

In contrary to Bitcoin’s 21 million supply limit, Litecoin’s limit is 84 million, giving Litecoin a 4:1 ratio in supply to Bitcoin. Although Litecoin is slightly more advanced than Bitcoin, it is mostly the same, and Litecoin is referred to as the test net for its bigger brother, Bitcoin.

Although many call Litecoin boring, there are a few interesting developments going on with it.

Litecoin SegWit

Segregated Witness, more commonly known as SegWit, is an upgrade to enable scaling on a global level via a soft fork. This is something that Bitcoin has had trouble with in recent times due to divided ideologies of how Bitcoin should progress long-term.

It is down to the miners to choose whether to upgrade to SegWit or not, and there are mixed opinions on this even within the Litecoin community.

The Litecoin community is also implementing SegWit at the moment, and it is currently at around 22% out of the 75% majority needed to be able to fully implement the upgrade.

No one truly knows if Litecoin will fully embrace SegWit, being the test net for Bitcoin. However, if this does happen, it will give Litecoin a considerable advantage over Bitcoin and many other digital currencies.

With SegWit activated, Litecoin will be fully scalable for global usage, something most of its rivals aren’t. This will surely cause the Bitcoin community to come to a permanent decision on long-term scaling and kickstart other currencies to embrace a similar path.

Will Litecoin Have an Anonymous Feature?

There are rumours in the forums and throughout the Internet that Litecoin is working on adding a privacy feature. Whether this is true or not still remains to be seen, but people believe that it will be similar to Dash’s privacy, through mixing transactions, as opposed to becoming totally anonymous, like Monero.

Litecoin has similar patterns to Bitcoin in the markets, and it usually reflects Bitcoin’s performance. With Litecoin embracing SegWit so quickly, we could see some amazing breakthroughs for the digital silver coin!

Check out a previous article I wrote titled “Bitcoin Vs. Litecoin.”

So Which is the Better Coin?

When it comes to branding and appeal to newcomers, Dash is the superior choice. Dash goes out of its way to simplify everything, and its marketing is impressive.

The self-funding and governance of Dash makes it an excellent choice, but don’t rule out Litecoin just yet… SegWit is something that the entire community of all legitimate digital currencies are watching closely. If progress carries on at the rate it is, then we could have a mainstream-ready Litecoin network, with a transaction speed that matches Dash’s.

Litecoin does deserve respect for simply holding its ground in the top 10 for so long. High volume and a price that hasn’t changed much (by cryptocurrency standards) in the last year shows demand and usage.

If Dash were in Litecoin’s position with SegWit, the whole world would know about it… even newcomers. But where Litecoin lacks in marketing, it makes up for it with integrity, quality, and simplicity, and it is a great store of value to complement Bitcoin.

In conclusion, each respective coin could do extremely well this year, and both have exciting things lined up. I wouldn’t sell either of them just yet!