Steemit Crypto Academy - Season 2- Homework Post for @levycore

INTRODUCTION
Privacy coins are mysterious coins that could be owned by anybody, in any amount and sent in anywhere and anytime and nobody would ever know. The simplest way to think of privacy coins is that they are basically digital cash. The concept behind privacy coins is when you go to an ATM,there’s a bank record of you removing cash and if you pay for something in cash, there is no direct record that you did anything at all. The concept behind privacy coin is the same as the name implies. If you want to turn your private coins into fiat or another crypto currency,the exchange will have a record of the trade happening but your transactions are completely private.There are a lot of private coins such as

• Dash
• Monero
• Zcash
• Verge
• Horizen
• Beam
• The Bottom Line

and I choose the DASH coin to talk about in this homework.

1.Choose a Privacy Coin and perform a fundamental analysis of the coin in detail.

DASH

source

I think it is a very interesting privacy coin and worth looking into which is why I chose DASH. Dash is actually a fork of Bitcoin that has gone through three different names since its inception in 2014. First called Xcoin ,then Darkcoin and officially changed its name in 2015 to Dashcoin( Digital cash). Dash is a project that wants to be used for matching payments and transactions. The coin uses proof of work for consensus which means that it can be minned, which I will be discussing in a bit.

Dash is thought of by many in the community as one of the first decentralized organizations. This is due to two main reasons :
1.the way the project makes its decisions
2.How dash gets its funds.

Some of the technology features in Dash, namely:

1.Masternode: with the decision making process, this is the part where the masternodes play in the dash network. Masternodes are small and select groups of users who earn their status by holding at least 1,000 dash, a user can spin up a node on the dash network if he/she meets this minimum criteria and it will be a Masternode. Masternodes are the users who make decisions that impacts the coin. It is their best interest to make decisions which positively impact the ecosystem. The decisions made by the masternodes are confirmed through a Yes/No system. They also have to maintain an updated copy of the dash blockchain. They further support both the instant and private send features.

2.InstantSend: If you want to send money or receive money very quickly, check out the instant send feature available on dash. With it, you can confirm transactions in just a few seconds which is considerably quicker than the average 10minutes it takes Bitcoin to perform the same function. Dash achieves this by moving its transactions through its masternodes instead through the miners themselves. Since transactions are confirmed much faster with masternodes.

3.PrivateSend: With the private send , it is Dash’s method for addressing the traceability to cryptocurrency. With this feature, users can create transactions that can not be traced on the blockchain. Again this is accomplished through the masternodes instead of the miners.

Ways of obtaining Dash may include the following:

• Mining :Dash also has a mining tool or component as well. Dash initially separated itself from Bitcoin with its mining process. With the help of the X11 algorithm , which is a proof of work algorithm that requires the processing power of computers in order to solve a complex cryptographic problem.Dash splits its mining rewards into three different parts. 45% of the rewards goes to the masternodes, 45% goes to the miners and the remaining 10% of the rewards goes to the last treasury. By breaking down the rewards, dash is funding all the necessary areas developing and improving the network project. This makes dash not only autonomous but entirely independent as well.

• Buying:To buy Dash on exchanges, you'll first need to create and validate your account by giving some personal information data. Once approved by the exchange, you'll be able to start buying Dash. You can also be able to buy dash via Credit/Debit card or via Bank Transfer directly on the exchange.

Fundamental Analysis of the Dash Coin

Unlike other privacy coins, dash has had a project to emulate what bitcoin is doing but rather wanted it more in terms of scalable, secure, easier and faster to transaction. Dash has a mark supply of 18,900,000 which indicates scarcity but also a great tin volume as well as it being decentralized. Dash has also got a market a market cap of about $1,952,662,658 , a fully diluted cap of about $3629,988,687(23.41%) as well as a total volume of $590,212,028 and also has total circulating supply of about 10,166,787.67 Dash.

Dash was worth $10 after it was designed and configured by its founder Eran Duffield with support from other people. Dash was worth $10 and since then it has radically risen and fallen. Dash has had an all time high of $1,480.22 which was on 20th December 2017 and has dropped to an all time low of $0.27 which was recorded on February 15th, 2014.

As at the last 24 hours,1 Dash is worth $192.06 and has a trading volume of $129,712,964,596 and a market cap of $1,667,226,182,841

Dash splits its mining rewards into three different parts. 45% of the rewards goes to the masternodes, 45% goes to the miners and the remaining 10% of the rewards goes to the last treasury. By breaking down the rewards, dash is funding all the necessary areas developing and improving the network project. Unlike Bitcoin were miners get the rewards fully.

2.Describe the steps in creating a wallet for the Privacy Coin of your choice.(Screenshot required)

How to create Dash steps are given below:

• I first open a web browser, I used chrome. Typed in the search box dash.org

• Immediately the website opens, from the homepage, I scroll down to “view all apps” and click on it.

• It takes me to download the app. I click on download for windows

• I scroll down below desktop wallets and I selected the download option that matches my laptop’s windows capacity , Windows(64) bit.

• I choose the wallet type I want,which is Dash Core and I clicked on download installer. From the IDM( internet download manager) menu that pops up, I click on start download

• It downloaded successfully and I went further to open and install it following the instructions and steps.

• I followed the instructions till it successfully installed. Then I clicked on finish.

• I opened the dash application to proceed to creating my dash wallet and saved the appearance setup by clicking on the save button

• I click on hide on the next page.

• Finally I successfully created my Dash wallet and can immediately make transactions.

3.Explain the reason you chose the Privacy Coin. (State the advantages and disadvantages)

I chose the Dash coin for numerous reasons.Dash has some very outstanding features like the InstantSend and PrivateSend which is a step into the future of crypto.
More so, it holds a high rank among the top privacy coins used in crypto and 52 among all other crypto currency as well.
By breaking down the rewards, dash is funding all the necessary areas developing and improving the network project. This makes dash not only autonomous but entirely independent as well.
With all these the Dash Coin is sure to get to some very high price numbers.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING THE DASH COIN

ADVANTAGES

• Transaction speed: Dash’s ‘InstantSend’ feature
  allows transactions to be sent and confirmed within a few seconds.

• Privacy : Dash’s ‘PrivateSend’ feature enables users to transact completely anonymous, without any trace of records.

• Decentralisation: Dash has over 4,500 members that are able tovote on key decisions, including major decision-making groups. This makes it much more centralised than many other currencies.

• Consensus: Dash easily implements improvements due to its ability to reach consensus.

DISADVANTAGES

• Brand Reputation: Over the years, Dash has changed its name twice and might still need to. Since typing in ‘Dash’ into a search engine will
  bring up information on the symbol, dash(-), before the cryptocurrency.

• PrivateSend feature: Due to no trace of records in transactions, it can easily be used for illegal purposes.

• Limited Uses: Other cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum and Ripple, have broader applications unlike Dash whose focus is much based on being a digital currency.

CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, With the features of dash, Dash makes itself almost anonymous with cash as it provides instant transactions and a way to make its coin fungible.

I must say that I have really enjoyed and learned a lot from this lecture.

Special thanks to @levycore(/@levycore) for the great lecture