Its vision was to facilitate fast anonymous transactions over the blockchain.
XCoin was rebranded as DarkCoin a few months into the launch to highlight its privacy-centric approach compared to Bitcoin.
The Dash ecosystem relies on masternodes for running its operations.

Critics argue that this makes Dash not truly decentralized as it puts early adopters at a significant advantage.
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DASH saw a market upswing during April-May, but was soon corrected.

The cryptocurrency rose from $306 on April 12 to $537 on April 24.
It couldnt maintain the gains, and dropped to $299 by the last week of May.
DASH also performed poorly compared to BTC, falling in relative value throughout the year.

As of mid-December, DASH has lost 74 percent of its value relative to BTC since January.
The cryptocurrency suffered in some of its older markets, but also managed to gain newer ones.
Dash suffered in Japan as local authorities began crackdowns against privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies.

Multiple Japanese exchanges including Coincheckstopped offeringDash trading under the pressure of the countrys Financial Services Agency (FSA).
Instead, the cryptocurrency found a new market in hyperinflation-struck Venezuela.
DASH was one of the cryptocurrenciesaddedby eToro and cryptocurrency wallet Abra on their respective platforms in 2018.

Major media outlets Bloomberg and MarketWatch alsobegan trackingthe performance of DASH this year.
The competition for enabling faster cryptocurrency transactions has increased tremendously since Dash first launched as well.
This is what put them at an advantage in Venezuela as well.

But that seems unlikely given that such a proposal has already been turned down once by its community.
Now that you have actionable information on the future ofDash, its time to start investing.