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General inquiry: DASH vs fiat and vs cryptocurrency competitors

Onion_75

New member
Hi,

I invested in DASH coins knowing very little about what DASH is trying to achieve and how it plans to do so. I believe that blockchain technology will succeed but, as of late, I see DASH losing market share to it's competitors and am therefore starting to wonder if DASH is still a worthwhile investment. I would really appreciate any information that would allow me to make a better-informed decision about making any changes to my investment in DASH. As such, I have a couple of general questions:

(i) Why would an average consumer choose to use a Dash pay card over a prepaid credit/debit card?
(ii) How relevant are Insta send and Dark send to average consumers?
(iii) Are masternodes in accordance with decentralization?

Thanks!
 
I might not be able to answer all the questions properly, but this is my opinion:

i) I don't think there is a "Dash pay card". What exists in that respect are prepaid debit cards that can be loaded (directly or indirectly) using Dash and other cryptocurrencies. The advantages of using Dash to load these cards are mainly the low fees, fast confirmation times and a somewhat independence of the volatility of Bitcoin and other coins.

ii) They are the main advantages of Dash relative to other currencies, as far as average consumers go. That's what makes Dash "Digital Cash". Instant Send IMHO is the main benefit for average consumers -- too bad it still isn't properly integrated in most services.

iii) What do you mean by that? Governance by masternodes is the decentralization itself, as decisions are made by them (anyone with the required collateral can setup a masternode) and not by a centralized team.
 
DASH has been resting on it's laurels, inventions of years ago, failing to fix the nagging problems with their implementation, and ignoring and labeling as a troll anyone who dares go against the grain of the yes men...
 
moonknight
(i) I meant compared to conventional fiat-based cards. Prepaid credit cards and debit cards are inexpensive and easy to use. How does Dash make spending easier/safer/less expensive/more appealing? (ii) I do not see widespread need for insta tx's when regular Dash tx's take only a few seconds. I also don't see everyday use for anonymous tx's, and there's questions as to the extent to which dark send is anonymous anyway. (iii) There are only about 4500 masternodes, and some individuals own more than one. Masternode owners also get 45% of the mining take. Although I agree that voters need to be incentivized, I do not consider a few thousand voters for a 1.3B market cap to be decentralized. - Onion
 
moonknight
(i) I meant compared to conventional fiat-based cards. Prepaid credit cards and debit cards are inexpensive and easy to use. How does Dash make spending easier/safer/less expensive/more appealing? (ii) I do not see widespread need for insta tx's when regular Dash tx's take only a few seconds. I also don't see everyday use for anonymous tx's, and there's questions as to the extent to which dark send is anonymous anyway. (iii) There are only about 4500 masternodes, and some individuals own more than one. Masternode owners also get 45% of the mining take. Although I agree that voters need to be incentivized, I do not consider a few thousand voters for a 1.3B market cap to be decentralized. - Onion

(i) There are credit and debit cards issued by conventional banks, and also debit cards operated by several money processing services. While a credit card (those are not prepaid) has some distinct advantages, there are a lot of reasons why people would chose not to use cards issued by banks - maybe they can't get credit or a bank account, maybe there is a legitimate concern over bank solidity or government interference (confiscation, taxation).. for instance, in my country, about 27 years ago, the government took a "compulsory loan" against people's bank accounts, effectively freezing everything above $20,000 (if I remember correctly) on each person's account; today there is a 6% tax on every purchase made abroad with a credit card, and a 6% tax on loading pre-paid international cards. There is no way to wire money to a payment processor abroad without lots of bureaucracy and/or a 25% tax. Our currency is historically unstable. I assume there are other countries with similar and even worse politics. By using crypto-loadable pre-paid cards I get around those concerns, and using Dash to load them I have the advantages of Dash itself. I control the asset used to load them, not a bank or a government. Maybe you are concerned on whether US or Western-European citizens would use them; well, some of these cases apply to them as well. But Dash, as every cryptocurrency, is global, and there is a huge market outside the US, Western-Europe, Japan and Australia.

(ii) A regular Dash tx normally takes from a few seconds to 2.5 minutes, or more if the service requires additional confirmations. That's fine for a lot of things, but not enough for using a "digital cash" as Dash proposes. There are a lot of perfectly legitimate use cases for anonymous transactions, for instance, the legal marijuana market in the US, which is considered illegal on a federal level (they also have to operate outside of the banking system).

(iii) I think that's about as decentralized as you can get on a 1.3B mcap. The key thing there is Proof-Of-Stake. You need to prove you have a considerable stake in the system if you are going to make decisions that might affect it substantially. The problem now is that just a small percentage of masternodes actually vote, and even then there is a problem with nodes' capability to evaluate proposals and accountability of the proposal owners.
 
(i) There are credit and debit cards issued by conventional banks, and also debit cards operated by several money processing services. While a credit card (those are not prepaid) has some distinct advantages, there are a lot of reasons why people would chose not to use cards issued by banks - maybe they can't get credit or a bank account, maybe there is a legitimate concern over bank solidity or government interference (confiscation, taxation).. for instance, in my country, about 27 years ago, the government took a "compulsory loan" against people's bank accounts, effectively freezing everything above $20,000 (if I remember correctly) on each person's account; today there is a 6% tax on every purchase made abroad with a credit card, and a 6% tax on loading pre-paid international cards. There is no way to wire money to a payment processor abroad without lots of bureaucracy and/or a 25% tax. Our currency is historically unstable. I assume there are other countries with similar and even worse politics. By using crypto-loadable pre-paid cards I get around those concerns, and using Dash to load them I have the advantages of Dash itself. I control the asset used to load them, not a bank or a government. Maybe you are concerned on whether US or Western-European citizens would use them; well, some of these cases apply to them as well. But Dash, as every cryptocurrency, is global, and there is a huge market outside the US, Western-Europe, Japan and Australia.

(ii) A regular Dash tx normally takes from a few seconds to 2.5 minutes, or more if the service requires additional confirmations. That's fine for a lot of things, but not enough for using a "digital cash" as Dash proposes. There are a lot of perfectly legitimate use cases for anonymous transactions, for instance, the legal marijuana market in the US, which is considered illegal on a federal level (they also have to operate outside of the banking system).

(iii) I think that's about as decentralized as you can get on a 1.3B mcap. The key thing there is Proof-Of-Stake. You need to prove you have a considerable stake in the system if you are going to make decisions that might affect it substantially. The problem now is that just a small percentage of masternodes actually vote, and even then there is a problem with nodes' capability to evaluate proposals and accountability of the proposal owners.

Re: Masternode governance, this is worth a read:
https://www.dashforcenews.com/dash-governance-incentivizes-prudent-decision-making/

Not perfect by any means, it's a work in progress but the foundations are pretty solid.

Sorry for the OT.
 
moonknight
(i) I meant compared to conventional fiat-based cards. Prepaid credit cards and debit cards are inexpensive and easy to use. How does Dash make spending easier/safer/less expensive/more appealing? (ii) I do not see widespread need for insta tx's when regular Dash tx's take only a few seconds. I also don't see everyday use for anonymous tx's, and there's questions as to the extent to which dark send is anonymous anyway. (iii) There are only about 4500 masternodes, and some individuals own more than one. Masternode owners also get 45% of the mining take. Although I agree that voters need to be incentivized, I do not consider a few thousand voters for a 1.3B market cap to be decentralized. - Onion

How many would it take before you felt it was decentralized? 10K? 50K? A million? Even at a million, it would only be a tiny fraction of 1% of the 7 billion people on earth. Still centralized by some standards.

On the other hand, how many people run Goldmann Sachs? Or Bank of America? How many people make the real decisions for Bitcoin? How do you get on that team? Can you get on that team at all?

Regarding privacy, you obviously live in a country that is fairly open and trustworthy with a government that isn't too bloodthirsty. If you support the wrong charity in Venezuela, or the wrong political party, you wind up in prison, or worse.
 
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