Bravenewcoin: Dash, the anonymous evolution of Bitcoin

in #money8 years ago (edited)

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Author: Eric Sammons || dash || bitcoin || development ||

The introduction of bitcoin sparked a revolution of finance and economics. Bitcoin set money’s value free from government constraint, value can now be determined solely by the market.

Instead of depending on centralized third parties for every financial transaction, people can exchange value around the world cheaply, and in a completely decentralized manner. Bitcoin ushered in the age of truly digital cash.

But bitcoin isn’t the whole story. By creating open-source money, Satoshi Nakomoto, the inventor of bitcoin, unlocked vast vistas for others to explore. Many developers have taken up the challenge over the years, building upon the foundation that is bitcoin to solve many real-world problems. One such person is Evan Duffield.

With a background in both software development and finance, Duffield was captivated by Bitcoin from its earliest days. Most particularly, he was intrigued by the idea of digital cash: a technology that could replicate the features of physical cash but without the drawbacks inherent in conventional currency.

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As he studied bitcoin more deeply, however, he discovered a weakness in its design: a lack of true anonymity. Some might argue that anonymity is only essential for those who wish to engage in illegal activities. But this is not the case, anonymity is necessary for two reasons.

First, it gives each transaction privacy, so that no one can pry into the financial transactions of others. Imagine giving public access to everyone’s credit card transactions. Such information, aside from violating individuals’ privacy, could be used to manipulate people in many ways.

Second, anonymity makes the currency “fungible”, meaning every unit of the currency is worth the same as any other unit. If people could track coins to specific people and transactions, efforts could be made to “taint” coins. For example, if they were previously involved in illegal activities they would be worth less than others.

Unfortunately, bitcoin does not supply true anonymity; each transaction is broadcast on a public blockchain for anyone to study. While those transactions are not publicly linked to specific individuals, connections between transactions and individuals can be made, with enough forensic research.

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Duffield wanted to improve anonymity in bitcoin itself, but struggled to make his voice heard. In the grand tradition of open-source technology, he decided to fork bitcoin, and create his own digital coin. He called it “Darkcoin”, reflecting the anonymity of the currency, and released it on January 18, 2014.

The initial reception was nothing short of remarkable. People quickly realized that Darkcoin solved a real-world digital currency problem, and the price reflected that realization. Users flocked to the coin, and soon its market capitalization was one of the highest of any digital currency.

Darkcoin overcame a number of technical hurdles in its first year – inventing a whole new way of doing money isn’t for the faint of heart – and became one of the top digital currencies on the market.

From these humble origins grew something greater, perhaps even greater than Duffield himself realized. The technical solution for implementing an anonymous currency held the seeds to much more.

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Duffield created an incentivized second tier of nodes, called “Masternodes”, which would be the foundation for a whole host of future features, many of which weren’t even considered when Darkcoin was first created.

Unlike bitcoin nodes, Masternodes receive payments for their service to the network. Because they are incentivized, more can be demanded of them. Anyone who has worked in software development knows how important the initial foundation of a project is. Without a robust infrastructure, there are limitations to what can be accomplished as the project matures.

As the project began to include more features, however, the Darkcoin name became a liability instead of a strength. It emphasized only the one aspect of the project – anonymity – and not everything it had the potential to become.

Public perception was that the Darkcoin name referred to its use in illegal activities, which was never the intention of the project. So the name was changed from Darkcoin to Dash”. A shortened form of “digital cash.”

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Since its creation, the Dash Masternode network has shown itself capable of handling new features. Over the past two years, new Dash features have continued to be added. For example:

InstantX: To solve the problem of lag time in transactions, Masternodes are able to instantly lock transactions.

Self-Budgeting: To solve the problem of lack of funding for development, Masternodes can direct funds right from the blockchain to support development.

Self-Governance: To solve the problem of making governance decisions on the future of the currency, Masternodes can vote on what development occurs.

This is just the beginning. Dash’s Masternode network allows for features in the protocol level that other digital currencies must push off to centralized third parties. Almost any feature can be decentralized and included in the Dash protocol.

The next phase of the Dash project, called Evolution, will introduce a new level of user-friendliness, to a space which is not known for it. “[Dash Evolution] is a next-generation platform for purely decentralized e-commerce.” Duffield explains. “This system when deployed will allow low-risk reputation-based e-commerce and a completely decentralized arbitration system that can replace centralized escrow services.”

bnc-black-royal


In response to @thedashguy’s request for Dash related content, #bravenewcoin once again listens and delivers promptly with one of our Dash articles. Please enjoy and remember you can view all market data on our website for Dash or any other Digital Assets at http://bravenewcoin.com/dash , just replace the word ‘Dash’ with your crypto currency of choice to view its data.

Keep Steeming!

Regards,

Ricardo Goncalves (BNC Steemit Community Manager)
sig_bravenewcoin_smlsig_twitter sig_linkedin sig_facebook sig_reddit sig_steemit

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In response to @thedashguy’s request for Dash related content, #bravenewcoin once again listens and delivers promptly with one of our Dash articles. Please enjoy and remember you can view all market data on our website for Dash or any other Digital Assets at http://bravenewcoin.com/dash , just replace the word ‘Dash’ with your crypto currency of choice to view its data.

Keep Steeming!

Regards,

Ricardo Goncalves (BNC Steemit Community Manager)
sig_bravenewcoin_smlsig_twitter sig_linkedin sig_facebook sig_reddit sig_steemit

You guys are so wonderful! Thanks alot!

Lol, we try our best ;)

post bacana

There seem to be many questions about the InsatntX protocol, during an interview on Bitcoin Uncesored, they question Dash's main figures, Amanda B Johnson, about the way DASH was created and how Instant transactioins are really hard to do, and seem incredible that the DASH community could do it with so little effort. Another point is that the DASH network itself is so small that it could be holded hostage through a Sibil attack which mainly is like a botnet of nodes that could be artificially orchestrated by an attacker and create double spend transactions. Then lately I read this more technical posts about the issues with DASH:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/4seua0/instantxploit/

PD: Not here to spread FUD, but want to be caution about these issues, and get a sound explanation.

Dash didn't do anything "with little effort". It's a strawman argument, because no one ever said it was "little effort" anywhere. Evan Duffield and his team worked their asses off to create the features we have today. Don't believe me? Check the Github commits. The proof is there.
As for the remaining lies Chris de Rose and his partner spread, I wrote a thorough debunking: https://steemit.com/de/@macrochip/amanda-b-johnson-on-bitcoin-uncensored-a-rebuttal

The "technical issue" you posted from Reddit has also been thoroughly refuted and is impossible to pull off. The author himself already admitted he was wrong. http://www.dashnation.com/education/instantxploit-cool-name-no-threat/

thank you @macrochip for replying to the above on behalf of the Dash community, I think the last link proves very useful.

Regards,

Ricardo Goncalves (BNC Steemit Community Manager)
sig_bravenewcoin_sml

Literally spreading FUD, use Dash for a while then come back here please. >.> Bitcoin Uncensored is complete trash and run by lifetime trolls.

Dear @jza , @bravenewcoin is primarily a market data provider of Digital Asset market pricing and related data for enterprise; it is not our place to reply on behalf of another project; these answers are best provided by the project itself and its representatives. I will however try convey the message and see if I can get a response for you.

Regards,

Ricardo Goncalves (BNC Steemit Community Manager)
sig_bravenewcoin_smlsig_twitter sig_linkedin sig_facebook sig_reddit sig_steemit

Hey man. I don't think that adding so shine signature on Steem in every comment is legit. I will struggle with that. Please, don't do that.

Hi Hipster

I saw you even wrote an article about it and feel that was taking it a bit far. I must say I am disappointed with this attack, if I was using my sig on your replies and posts I would understand and respect that, for example I don't use them for @ash out of respect for him and his views that it derails the replies. @thedashguy thinks it's great and is using it himself, we are all unique individuals. I represent a company and it is my duty to promote it however I can, I felt the signature was innovative (I think the first on Steemit) and I even streamlined it to make it less derailing on comments. Attacking companies that join Steemit is not a good strategy and overall will slow down the Steemit adoption to corporate.

I have been advocating Steemit to our company and wanting them to be more involved, I've lobbied to have a more in depth article written by our writers about Steemit to go out to our mailing list of 7000+ readers. I have seen people use .gifs in replies and that has been acceptable. Remember @ned says Steemit is like a dinner party and we all should try get along, I haven't attacked you personally and haven't written a whole negative article about you in at any time.

I have only supported Steem and tried to convert other;, trying to stop me from expressing my entrepreneurship and creativity is in itself censorship and not in the spirit of Steemit. I have no problem respecting you and not using my signature on your posts and in replies to you, but please don't try control how I and my company uses Steemit.

Thanks that you removed this annoying signature.

@hipster I didn't remove it, I just didn't use it for my reply to you out of respect for you.

Literally spreading FUD, use Dash for a while then come back here please. >.>

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