• Forum has been upgraded, all links, images, etc are as they were. Please see Official Announcements for more information

Could Dash be merged to Bitcoin some day?

KryptoTypek

New member
This is just a thought. Dash presents itself as "advanced Bitcoin" and aims to surpass Bitcoin in becoming the mainstream digital currency. We all know that Dash has significant technological advantages over Bitcoin, while Bitcoin has the advantage of being the first, best known currency, and that it has the largest user base. From a technical view, there should be no problem in merging all the advancements in Dash back to Bitcoin code. This would IMO effectively make Dash obsolete, because it would no longer be superior to Bitcoin.

The question is, would the Bitcoin community recognize the benefits of such a merge and would the majority support it? It may seem unlikely now, but what if in a few years, Dash will become more popular and have (lets say) the second largest market cap and would be threatening Bitcoins first position. But maybe at this point, Dash will have the same popularity as Bitcoin and should the merge happen, the two currencies would be equal.

What are your thoughts on this?
 
This is just a thought. Dash presents itself as "advanced Bitcoin" and aims to surpass Bitcoin in becoming the mainstream digital currency. We all know that Dash has significant technological advantages over Bitcoin, while Bitcoin has the advantage of being the first, best known currency, and that it has the largest user base. From a technical view, there should be no problem in merging all the advancements in Dash back to Bitcoin code. This would IMO effectively make Dash obsolete, because it would no longer be superior to Bitcoin.

The question is, would the Bitcoin community recognize the benefits of such a merge and would the majority support it? It may seem unlikely now, but what if in a few years, Dash will become more popular and have (lets say) the second largest market cap and would be threatening Bitcoins first position. But maybe at this point, Dash will have the same popularity as Bitcoin and should the merge happen, the two currencies would be equal.

What are your thoughts on this?

Back in 2014 there was a vocal group of Bitcoin maximalists decrying altcoins as "scams." The argument was that altcoins would never have any value, since even if they did come up with something innovative, that innovation would just be copied by Bitcoin. If for some reason Bitcoin couldn't (or didn't want to) copy that altcoin's features, they could just create a "sidechain." Thus Bitcoin would always be king.

Fast forward three years, and the community can't even agree on how to increase the network's transaction capacity. They have no governance model, no method of enforcement, and no "sporks" that can reset the network to a previous condition if something goes wrong. Upgrading Bitcoin's code requires a 95% consensus amongst miners, and right now nobody has come anywhere close to achieving this. Even SegWit, which by itself should be fairly uncontroversial, is only at about 25% adoption because it's become mired in politics.

Bitcoin is totally paralyzed, and there's no sign this will change any time soon. Just think about it--they've been arguing about block size for more than three years now. Three years to decide whether to increase blocksize by a piddly 1 MB. It's absolutely extraordinary. The U.S. Congress looks downright productive when compared to Bitcoin.

tl;dr: Technically, Bitcoin could adopt many of our features either through sidechains (which haven't yet been invented) or through radically overhauling their own software (we are a two-tier network and they are not, so the changes required would be massive). But such a change will never happen, because Bitcoin is completely ossified.

P.S. I remember this same question was asked during early Ethereum development, except in that case it was "If Ethereum is to be open source, what keeps somebody from just forking it." The answer, of course, is nothing. But that market is usually pretty good at rewarding whatever version is seen to be authentic (usually the version that has the rock star development team). Look at Ethereum versus Ethereum Classic!

Even if Bitcoin did eventually decide to copy Dash, the market would likely recognize that Dash's team is the one that's innovating, and that Bitcoin's team is merely copying. Why use the copycat's software when you can use the innovator's version? Besides, Bitcoin would always be trying to catch up with our latest changes, since by definition, we would get them first!
 
Last edited:
But such a change will never happen, because Bitcoin is ossified.

Yes, right now it seems unlikely. But by this time, most people involved in Bitcoin must have realized that its biggest issue is in the decision making process. And this problem will only become worse in the future. And also right now, Bitcoin is still way ahead of other cryptos in turns of adoption and market cap. But what if a few years down the line, Dash starts to threaten its position. Maybe the community will realize, "Ok, Bitcoin is loosing its position. Our biggest issue is the decision making process and falling number of full nodes. Oh look, Dash has effectively solved this problem with masternodes several years ago, and it works great. Why don't we just copy that...".
 
Maybe one day, Bitcoin will be merged to Dash. There was consideration at one point in our earlier history to buy out Shadowcash via a negotiated exchange rate and proof-of-burn. It did not happen, but I wouldn't be against similar ideas in the future if it makes sense from a business perspective and works out positively for both communities.
 
Yes, right now it seems unlikely. But by this time, most people involved in Bitcoin must have realized that its biggest issue is in the decision making process. And this problem will only become worse in the future. And also right now, Bitcoin is still way ahead of other cryptos in turns of adoption and market cap. But what if a few years down the line, Dash starts to threaten its position. Maybe the community will realize, "Ok, Bitcoin is loosing its position. Our biggest issue is the decision making process and falling number of full nodes. Oh look, Dash has effectively solved this problem with masternodes several years ago, and it works great. Why don't we just copy that...".

It's not impossible, but consider:

a) If Bitcoin is really to the point where they're falling behind and the only salvation is Dash's technology, then that implies that Dash is already ahead of Bitcoin in terms of marketcap, adoption, etc.

b) Most users, investors, and business partners would rather stick with the "original" technology rather than go to a copycat. Think about it: even if Bitcoin merged every single change we make, they would simply be reacting. If they are copying us, then by definition that means we have new features and fixes before they do. The marketplace could either adopt Dash and get improvements/fixes immediately, or they could wait on Bitcoin to copycat us and get improvements/fixes weeks or months later. Which would they rather?

c) Look at Ethereum. Many have tried to copycat them, including Counterparty, yet none succeeded in rivaling them. Look at the Ethereum vs. Ethereum Classic split: the vast majority of the value (marketcap, users, miners, vendors) followed Ethereum. Philosophical arguments aside, the market decided that the version of Ethereum with almost the entire dev team behind it was the "real" version.

Could it happen? Sure, it could, but it's highly, HIGHLY unlikely.

P.S. In order for Bitcoin to remain Bitcoin and not split into an Ethereum vs. Ethereum Classic situation, overwhelming consensus is needed. Right now, BTC Core is requiring 95% approval of SegWit before it becomes active, and that's for a SOFT FORK. The hard fork that would be necessary to "fix" the governance structure, let alone to adopt any of Dash's features, would be quite literally almost impossible to achieve.
 
Maybe one day, Bitcoin will be merged to Dash. There was consideration at one point in our earlier history to buy out Shadowcash via a negotiated exchange rate and proof-of-burn.

How would it work if BTC holders could acquire DASH through proof-of-burn? And would it be more desirable than letting people simply sell their BTC for DASH?
 
Back
Top