Based on the Bitcoin project, Dash was launched on January 18, 2014 by founder Evan Duffield. The first few years of development saw Dash develop a focus on speed and fungibility, making it an excellent and practical alternative to cash, both online and at the point of sale in shops and restaurants.

Due to its low fees and fast transactions, Dash is used around the world as a practical alternative to cash and credit cards. It is also a useful solution in the international remittances market. It is particularly popular in regions where technical access barriers exist to traditional payment systems, or where hyperinflation has made existing currency impractical to use.

What are the advantages of Dash?

• Freedom
  Dash puts you in full control of your money. Dash can be sent or received by anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. There are no bank holidays, exchange rates, bureaucracy or hidden fees to deal with.
• Irreversible Transactions
  Transactions are instant and final, protecting merchants from expensive fraudulent chargebacks.
• Security
  Dash payments can be made and verified by both parties even without any personal information in the transaction.
• Speed
  Unlike many other digital currencies, Dash transactions are secure and visible to the entire network in under 1.5 seconds

What are the disadvantages of Dash?

• Acceptance
  Dash is not yet as widely accepted as other payment methods. Many merchants have never heard of Dash.
• Volatility
  As a relatively new currency, the market value of Dash is not yet stable. These changes from day to day may discourage users and merchants from transacting in Dash, or holding Dash after completing a transaction.

What are masternodes?

Masternodes were invented as a unique feature of the Dash network, and form a second layer used to ensure the blockchain is readily available to all network participants. Masternodes also perform a number of other functions related to the health and efficiency of the network, such as governance, securely storing user data, processing transactions for light wallets and facilitating instant and private transactions.

InstantSend

Dash was the first digital currency to offer secure instant transactions based on the masternode network. Unlike conventional blockchains, where it is necessary to wait for transaction confirmation in a block, Dash leverages the network of masternodes to validate that the funds specified in the transaction have not already been spent, and then locks them within 1-2 seconds so they cannot be spent again until the transaction is complete. Any transactions attempting to use the same funds will be rejected by the network, even in the case of a 51% attack.

PrivateSend

Dash offers optional transaction anonymity through a feature called PrivateSend. An improvement of CoinJoin, PrivateSend allows you to break up your Dash into specific denominations and “mix” these with other participants, thereby obscuring the origin of funds used in the final transaction. PrivateSend offers superior privacy to centralized mixing services because each round of mixing is facilitated by a different masternode, making it effectively impossible to track funds on the blockchain.