Dash’s payment network just doubled its transaction rate and significantly reduced its fees. Regular transactions on the highly anonymous Dash network now cost less than one cent; Dash’s special InstandSend transactions, which are executed in less than two seconds, now cost a mere 2.8 cents. To put that in perspective, the United States Federal Reserve reported in 2015 that the average debit card transaction costs roughly twenty-eight cents, a number that increases along with the transaction amount.

Meanwhile, transactions on the Bitcoin network have become so expensive, and take so long to be confirmed, that smaller transactions have been priced out of the market – the average transaction on the Bitcoin network costs a whopping US$6. Additionally, an average of just seven transactions can be processed per second on the Bitcoin network; Dash’s upgrade has increased the number of transactions processed per second up to 48.

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Dash’s Network Was Created for Scalability, Ease-of-Use

Ryan Taylor, Dash Core CEO, said that Dash’s increased transactional capabilities come in anticipation of a future in which it is more widely used. “Scaling solutions take time to develop, test, and deploy. In the digital currency space, transaction volumes can grow quickly, so we believe it is critical to stay well ahead of anticipated demand.”

Additionally, Taylor believes that the popularity of Bitcoin could ultimately benefit Dash: “Beyond our own network’s growth, there is a real possibility that Bitcoin’s own exponential growth could spill over into other networks.”

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Dash’s network was created with many of the lessons learned from Bitcoin’s network in mind. Dash was built to be easily integrated into online stores, apps, and dapps as a means-of-payment. Dash currently has over a hundred ‘merchant partners’, including crypto-based debit cards, VPN providers, web and graphic design services, and online stores.

Consensus and Master Nodes Keep Dash Running with Stability

The system of governance created by Dash was designed to prevent the kind of rifts that have plagued the Bitcoin community over the last several years. Taylor said: “Bitcoin’s network hasn’t been able to agree on increasing their block size for years.” For Dash’s recent upgrade, “it simply took a vote from our stakeholders and execution in line with our public roadmap, followed by the software rollout.”

Additionally, the Dash network is made more stable by ‘master nodes’, computers that are incentivized to hold large amounts of Dash tokens at a time to keep the network running smoothly and prevent major fluctuations in value from happening.

A single Dash token is currently worth roughly US$330, a 3300% rise from its value of approximately US$10 one year ago. While the network still certainly has a way to go before it is adopted for mainstream use, it certainly does show some early signs of a strong network.