Recent cryptocurrency price declines have attracted the attention of mainstream media outlets.
Many attribute the price declines to tax selloffs, exchange hacks, ICOs, and negative regulation developments. Some have proclaimed this to be the beginning of the end, while others, such as Brian Kelly, have called Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies “not dead”. Kelly says that the USD exchange price of cryptocurrencies are entering bear market territory, but that it is also important to keep things in “perspective”. To prove his point, he rhetorically asked, “Do you know where we were a year ago?” To which he answered, “$2,500.” Brian Kelly was eluding to the fact that even though cryptocurrency prices are down over a few months, they are actually significantly up year over year.
Kelly also had a positive outlook on the regulation developments even though it has caused the USD exchange price to drop significantly. Kelly said, “They’re cleaning up the system. They’re making sure it’s more robust. Making sure it’s better for people”.
Transactions matter more than price
All the news outlets significantly focusing on the fiat exchange price seem to overlook that the goal of cryptocurrency is to be a peer-to-peer digital currency and payments system free from centralized authorities. This goal means that the fiat exchange prices does not matter that much for cryptocurrencies. Even if the price for one whole cryptocurrency is nominally large in fiat exchange rates, a diverse income demographic can still use cryptocurrencies to buy and sell everyday items since most cryptocurrencies are divisible into very small amounts, such as one Satoshi (a hundredth of a millionth BTC). This everyday usability for large and small purchases does rely on transaction fees and confirmation times remaining low. Thus, it is the number of transactions per day that matters more than the price to successfully and sustainable accomplish the goal of becoming a peer-to-peer digital currency and payments system.
The transactions per day is a better indication than price of how much cryptocurrency is actual being used by people in everyday life rather than just for speculation. The number of transactions matter since actually using a currency is what gives it value and stability as a currency. Transactions per day displays how consumers are handling that coin’s transaction fees, confirmation times, security, and merchant adoption. More transactions per day is an indication that a cryptocurrency has solid fundamentals that consumers can trust to use in everyday life for cheap and fast peer-to-peer transactions, while less transactions per day indicates the opposite.
The number of Dash transactions are increasing
A few days ago, the number of Dash transactions per day had increased to over 35,000 transactions, which had exceeded the transactions count per day of both Litecoin and Monero, combined. This occurrence makes sense, intuitively, since Dash has been focusing on everyday adoption around the world. Dash has been so appealing to so many people because it has been able to consistently maintain low transaction fees, fast confirmation times, and security. This makes Dash appealing to both consumers and merchants relative to traditional currencies and payment methods that are unstable due to monetary and fiscal policy or charge exorbitant fees. Dash also sets itself apart from other cryptocurrencies that have seen spikes in their transaction fees and confirmation times, which has made those cryptocurrencies less reliable than Dash.
Dash is experiencing rapid adoption around the world due to its treasury system that has allowed for professional and experienced development and outreach around the world. Dash is now seeing the rewards of that incentivized structure and hard work through an increasing number of transactions. This brings Dash one step closer to accomplishing the goal of cryptocurrency to be a decentralized peer-to-peer currency and payment network.
