What is Dash?

Dash (DASH) describes itself as digital cash that aims to offer financial freedom to everyone. Payments are fast, easy, secure, and with near-zero fees. Built to support real-life use cases, Dash aims to provide a fully-decentralized payments solution. Users can purchase goods at thousands of merchants and trade it at major exchanges and brokers around the globe.

History

The currency was launched in January 2014 as "Xcoin" by Evan Duffield, as a fork of the Bitcoin protocol. It is an altcoin and in its early days it was subject to pump and dump speculation. It was rebranded as Darkcoin, which received press for being used in dark net markets. In March 2015, it rebranded again with the name Dash as a portmanteau of 'digital cash'. As of August 2016, Dash is no longer used in any major dark net markets worth noting.