Interview - Dash News

Dash Podcast 138 – Crypto Rating Council Awards Dash Top Marks & Dash Price Increase

Video re-post of the Dash News Podcast episode 138. This week Mark and Joel discuss the recent news of Dash receiving highest score from the Crypto Rating Council and also thoughts behind Dash’s recent upward price movements.
⏱️ Podcast Video Timestamps:

1:27 This week’s price action
2:00 Possible cause(s)
6:12 BSV
10:27 How higher price affects Dash’s treasury and DIF
12:21 DIF as Dash’s Central Bank
13:28 Crypto Rating Council awards Dash top marks
15:44 Non-mineable coins
18:45 Scores of the Crypto Rating Council and their meaning, also for various other projects
25:12 Thoughts on future Dash price and project?
36:15 Dash usernames
42:04 Trustless user staking/MN shares
53:00 Has Dash’s price impacted Dash Core Group development?
58:00 Sunday, Jan 19th Dash will be 6 years old. How to celebrate Dash’s achievements?

The Dash News podcast is now available to listen to on the following platforms:
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If you haven’t done so by now, can you please make sure you like and subscribe to the Dash News YouTube channel. Thank you to the Dash community for your continued support.
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Dash Awarded Top Rating By Crypto Rating Council Above Ethereum and Zcash

Dash has received the top rating from the Crypto Rating Council, passing Ethereum and Zcash and equaling Bitcoin in lowest possibility of being considered a security.

We're pleased to announce that @OKCoin USA, @eToroUS and @RadarRelay have joined the Crypto Rating Council, which is also publishing 5 new asset ratings today. Learn more at https://t.co/f7mmsfoO2r and in today's announcement: https://t.co/vsb2YMsmNt
— Crypto Rating Council (@CRC_Crypto) January 16, 2020

In an announcement released today, The Crypto Rating Council, billed the “leading crypto financial services firms committed to practical compliance with the U.S. securities laws”, laid out new ratings for several top assets, including Dash, evaluating their likely regulatory standing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):
“We are also pleased to publish new asset ratings for five additional tokens: Cosmos (ATOM), Livepeer (LPT), Dash (DASH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Horizen (ZEN), each of which are traded, transacted or supported in some capacity as a non-security by at least one member’s U.S. business.”
The Crypto Rating Council system is graded from 1-5, from least to most likely to be classified as a security by the SEC, according to internal analysis:
“As a reminder, a score of 1 means the CRC analysis found that an asset has few or no characteristics consistent with treatment as a security while a score of 5 means the CRC’s analysis found that an asset has more characteristics strongly consistent with treatment as a security under U.S. law. The CRC’s analysis is its own and is not endorsed by developer teams, regulators, or any other third party.”
In the updated ratings list, Dash received a rating of 1, indicating it is highly unlikely to be classified as a security by the SEC and therefore become subject to more stringent regulations. This ranking puts Dash in the same category as currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, Horizen, and the DAI stablecoin.
A strong regulatory favorability ranking for Dash outdoing Zcash and Ethereum

The Crypto Ratings Council, formed by crypto businesses committed to compliance with US securities laws, has rated Dash with the best score possible. This means the analysis found Dash has few or no characteristics consistent with treatment as a security.https://t.co/0OKUh72Sen
— Dash (@Dashpay) January 16, 2020

This new ranking by the Crypto Rating Council puts Dash in a favorable position from a regulatory perspective, outdoing many other players in the space. Notably, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Zcash all received poorer scores than Dash, receiving a score of 2. This is likely due to Ethereum and Ethereum classic, despite being mined through proof-of-work presently, nonetheless stemming from an initial ICO funding round raised with a single party distributing initial tokens to explicit investors. Zcash, while entirely mined through proof-of-work since its inception, nonetheless initially included a “founders reward” whereby a portion of all mining revenue was redirected to the founding entity. Other major projects such as Tezos and XRP received even poorer ratings of 3.75 and 4 respectively, likely due to a significant ICO and a delegated proof-of-stake model in the case of Tezos, and the entire supply being created in advance in the case of XRP.
Dash Core Group has actively engaged with the SEC in the past in order to seek a favorable ruling and potentially an explicit no-action letter. Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor believes that Dash’s legal argument against being classified as a security is very strong, and believes that recent communications and lack of action are indicators that Dash is far from being viewed as a security and being subjected to additional regulation.

Dash Podcast 137 Feat. Dr. Darren Tapp Security Analysis of ChainLocks And Dash Economic Incentives

Video re-post of the Dash News Podcast episode 137. This week we had special guest Dr. Darren Tapp to discuss his recent security analysis of chainlocks blog post and also his thoughts on Dash’s economic incentives.
⏱️ Podcast Video Timestamps:

0:56 Introducing Prof. Dr. Darren Tapp and tappmath.com
2:30 The security analysis of chainlocks
12:17 block reward reallocation security aspects (mostly relating to SPV wallets)
17:30 Is ASU doing research on this (mostly relating to Dash’s economic model)
18:50 How would you optimize Dash’s economics?
24:18 monetary velocity vs price and aggregate demand
27:50 can we have the Dash price on-chain
29:25 Dash’s inflation rate
33:37 Do these chances affect scaling ability
36:45 What is on the ASU research to-do list
39:25 MNO voting, staking and trustless MN shares
42:33 Reducing voting obstacles
47:35 Dash staking
52:00 Will you be posting more Dash research on tappmath.com

ATAR Pay Integra o Dash Possibilitando Pagamento NFC em mais de 2.5 Milhões de Comerciantes Brasileiros

O Dash Brasil fez uma parceria com o Processador de Pagamentos ATAR e a casa de câmbio Stratum para permitir que os usuários Dash façam compras em mais de 2.5 milhões de comerciantes no Brasil.
[tweet https://twitter.com/DashDinheiro/status/1205629774200266752 align=’right’]
A ATAR desenvolveu uma carteira móvel junto com uma pulseira NFC (Comunicação por Campo de Proximidade) que permite que os consumidores façam pagamentos sem contato em qualquer lugar em que um cartão Mastercard é aceito — o que totaliza atualmente 85% das máquinas (2.5 milhões de comerciantes) no Brasil. A Stratum é uma casa de câmbio online de criptomoedas que permite que aos consumidores comprar, vender, e sacar criptomoedas, além de recarregar seus celulares, pagar contas no Brasil, e recarregar pulseiras ATAR.
Os Avanços do Dash nos Mercados Brasileiros e Experimentos em Pagamentos NFC
Antes da ATAR, o Dash se envolveu em experimentos para aproveitar pagamentos NFC. Um projeto anterior conseguiu que 25% dos indivíduos em um festival de música estoniano com 4 000 participantes gastassem mais de 19 000 EUR em Dash via pulseiras NFC em quatro dias. A carteira Dash também foi atualizada para dar suporte para funcionalidades do Apple Watch.
O Dash também fez progressos nos mercados brasileiros e foi recentemente adicionada ao serviço de pagamento e gateway Kamoney, que também permite que os brasileiros paguem contas. Além disso, este ano o Dash foi adicionado às casas de câmbio PagCripto, CoinTrade.cx, NovaDAX, 3xbit, CoinBene e XDEX, aumentando significativamente as opções para comprar Dash no país.
Balanceando usabilidade com confiabilidade
A parceria do Dash Brasil com a casa de câmbio Stratum e o amigável processador de pagamentos ATAR ajuda a reduzir essa barreira de adoção tornando os pagamentos mais fáceis e mais acessíveis para mais comerciantes, dando um importante passo intermediário para a aceitação direta de pagamentos em Dash sem necessidade de conversão para moeda fiduciária. O pagamento de contas pela Stratum oferece uma oportunidade ainda maior já que é uma necessidade da maior parte dos Brasileiros, mas pagar com criptomoedas disponibiliza pagamentos online para consuidores que não têm uma conta bancária.
As criptomoedas foram criadas para serem uma fonte confiável de pagamentos para que os indivíduos escapem altas taxas bancárias, junto com potenciais censuras governamentais e privadas que ocorrem quando os consumidores e comerciantes dependem de terceiros que facilitem os pagamentos. No entanto, depois de 10 anos da criação do Bitcoin, o setor de criptomoedas ainda tem dificuldade para atingir adoção em massa. Um fator contribuinte foi a dificuldade para o usuário final, fazendo com que terceiros entrassem no mercado para facilitar a usabilidade e aceitação pelos comerciantes como um meio termo para a descentralização.

Long-Awaited Dash Evolution Platform Released on Testnet with Developer Documentation Hub

Dash Platform, the long-awaited upgrade to the Dash network formerly codenamed Evolution, has been released to testnet including a developer documentation portal.
In a post released today, Dash Core Group Product Owner Dana Alibrandi announced today the release of Dash Platform to Evonet, a public testnet enabling developers to experiment with the functionalities of the platform ahead of full mainnet release:
“This release to Evonet marks a significant milestone after years of concerted effort by Dash Core Group, as we designed, redesigned, and finally implemented the Evolution vision as it was originally conveyed. This release represents the early stages of a platform that aims to revolutionize value exchange and deliver on the promise of digital cash. The development team behind Dash Platform is driven to make development easy and accessible for everyone striving to realize the promise of blockchain. We look forward to your thoughts, comments, suggestions, and pull requests as the Dash DAO enters a new chapter in its history.”
Conceptualized beginning in late 2015, the Dash Evolution project aims to provide a much more user-friendly experience to cryptocurrency than what is presently available, using usernames and contact lists instead of long cryptographic addresses and providing an easy solution for developers unfamiliar with blockchain technology to build decentralized applications for a variety of purposes.
A superior data platform than centralized companies and cryptocurrency competitors
According to Alibrandi, Dash Platform provides distinct advantages over traditional cloud storage platforms, including control over data and heightened security:
“Within the centralized web, it is most similar to a product like Firebase’s Cloud Firestore. The main benefits of using Dash Platform over Firestore are similar to the general advantages of decentralization: better security, ownership over data, reduced data silos, and enhanced transparency. Over time, Dash Platform intends to add more components to its stack so that developers can fully utilize the Dash network to facilitate trustless, disintermediated value exchange.”
In addition to centralized cloud storage solutions, Alibrandi believes that Dash Platform offers distinct advantages over other similar solutions within the cryptocurrency industry as well, including Ethereum’s upcoming Swarm data storage system, promising a more fluid developer experience while allowing its functionality to remain compatible with Ethereum applications:
“In a broader sense, Dash Platform provides the missing data layer in the vision for a fully decentralized web. It is similar in functionality and goals to Ethereum Swarm and can be used in tandem with Ethereum dapps as a decentralized database. When compared with Swarm, Dash Platform stands out due to its fluid developer experience and fast block confirmation times on the Platform blockchain, which allow for changes to your application data to be confirmed and reflected on user interfaces in real time.”
The Dash Platform experience for recording data state transitions promises to be more streamlined than that of major competitors thanks to the Platform Chain, a data-purposed sidechain that does not interfere with the main blockchain during times of peak activity, as has happened in the past most notably with Ethereum.
The first release of many in a phased rollout leading up to mainnet release
Today’s release of Dash Platform to Evonet represents the first in a series of phases to test all aspects of Platform’s functionality prior to full mainnet release next year, beginning with some basic username-based functionalities:
“With this release, developers will be able to test the following actions:

Connect to Evonet via DAPI
Connect a 3rd Party Masternode to Evonet
Deploy a Private Devnet with Platform Components
Create a Test Identity and Register a Test Name
Fetch Identities and Resolve names
Explore Dash Platform Name Service (DPNS)
Discover Platform Code Repositories”

Following this initial phase will be a release centered on finalizing security around storing and retrieving data, a phase introducing incentive mechanisms and monetization of the platform’s various capabilities, and finally an optimization phase prior to full mainnet release:
“Lastly, we will optimize and polish the platform in preparation for a mainnet release. There will be improvements to the platform chain in order to handle chain halts and improve consensus efficiency. Without these improvements, the platform chain could stop producing blocks due to validator sets not being able to agree on the contents of a block. Feature flags will be added to smoothly introduce new features once the platform is live on mainnet, and we will conduct thorough security checks to ensure there are no vulnerabilities that put funds or data at risk.”
Included in this release is a full dedicated developer documentation portal to bring potential developers fully up to speed with Dash Platform’s capabilities so that they are able to quickly begin experimenting with the platform. The various Platform repositories are linked at the bottom of the announcement post.