Financial freedom, built on masternodes

Dash was launched by Evan Duffield with the unique X11 hashing algorithm as its defining feature, and initial development focused on dynamic adjustment of mining difficulty, known as Dark Gravity Wave. This was soon followed by masternodes, providing a powerful and incentivized set of full nodes which form a backbone for the network and offer services to users. Sporks were released to help deliver a smooth release process of new features without hard-forking the network, and finally PrivateSend was released to make Dash a truly fungible currency.

Building a foundation for the future

While initially based on the Litecoin project, Dash rebased to Bitcoin in early 2015. InstantSend, a method of locking transactions secured using the second-layer masternode architecture, was released soon afterwards. Work continued throughout the year to build a decentralized governance system and release up to 10% of the block reward to proposals presented to the network. The first superblock was mined on 7 September 2015, making Dash the world’s first Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).

Blocksize and hashrate increases

Within 24 hours, the network completed a historic vote, reaching consensus to authorize developers to begin work on 2MB blocks, guaranteeing future capacity. Meanwhile, the hash rate multiplied rapidly as powerful mining hardware was released, increasing 16-fold over the course of the year. The management of the core team saw further professionalization and the introduction of quality assurance measures. Bitcore and Insight were released with Dash extensions, based on a network-funded effort to port the X11 hashing algorithm to JavaScript.

Stability, decentralization and accessibility

2017 saw Dash supported on major hardware wallets and two releases to optimize preparation of PrivateSend funds, and better manage the growing list of governance objects using a tool called Sentinel. Meanwhile, fees on all transactions were reduced by a factor 10 across the board, and ownership of Dash Core Group was transferred to an irrevocable trust, with the decentralized network itself named as beneficiary.

Named devnets

Named devnets allow for the creation of multiple independent devnets. Each one is identified by a name which is hardened into a “devnet genesis” block, automatically positioned at height 1.

Governance system improvements

Watchdogs have not been used since 0.12.2.x; instead, all required information about Sentinel is included in masternode pings. For this update, additional information was added to ensure that masternode pings weren’t changed by an intermediary node. All messages and logic related to watchdogs were removed. Improvements were made to the proposal message format and to proposal validation and processing, lowering network traffic and CPU usage. Handling of triggers was also improved.

PrivateSend improvements

Instead of requiring PrivateSend collateral to be N times the PrivateSend fee, any input which is greater than or equal to 1 PrivateSend fee (but less than or equal to 4) can now be used as collateral. Inputs greater than or equal to 1 PrivateSend fee but strictly less than 2 will be used as collateral with OP_RETURN outputs. This lowered the number of inputs a wallet needs to handle, and improved privacy by eliminating the case where a user accidentally merges small non-private inputs together. It also decreased global UTXO set size.

New Dash branding

Android and iOS versions of DashWallet were updated with the new branding guidelines, modernizing the look and feel of both apps.

Uphold integration (Android)

The ability to buy and sell Dash on Uphold through a web view within the Android app was also integrated, allowing for easier onboarding of users.

NFC support (iOS)

The ability to request a payment via NFC was added, allowing users to tap supporting payment terminals and wallets to receive payment information.

iPad support (iOS)

The ability to use DashWallet on iPad was added so users can pay and receive payments on their tablets.

New localizations

Many new languages and currencies were added so that users all across the world can use DashWallet in their native language and view exchange rates in their local currencies.

Automatic InstantSend

Dash Core v0.13 introduced Automatic InstantSend, where transactions with four or less inputs will default to InstantSend, at no additional charge to users.

Deterministic Masternode List

The Deterministic Masternode List provides a single source of truth for all transactions requiring validation by masternodes, such as InstantSend transactions. The list is fully derived from on-chain data. This ensures all nodes will come to the same consensus regarding the current state of the valid masternode list.

Special Transactions

Special Transactions provide new structures to enable non-financial transactions on the blockchain. This feature will lay the groundwork for future uses of the network on layer 2, like Blockchain Users.

Three masternode keys

Previously, masternodes had two keys for their masternode: owner (to prove ownership) and operator (to operate the masternode and use it to vote). The second key was broken into two: operator and voting, such that the masternode may delegate voting if they choose.

Unlock wallet with fingerprint

Users may now unlock their wallet using their fingerprint to allow for seamless use of the app.

iOS Library integration

DashWallet is now integrated with an iOS library that connects it to the Dash blockchain, and may in future be used by other iOS clients to do the same.

InstantSend receiving (iOS)

DashWallet can now confirm whether a received transaction was sent via InstantSend.

Price sourcing alignment

The price sources are now aligned between both the iOS and Android versions of DashWallet.

Long Living Masternode Quorums

Long Living Masternode Quorums provide for increased scalability of the network by improving consensus and expanding the universe of potential use cases for the network. These quorums drastically reduce the amount of messages required to validate transactions, and avoid each individual node on the network having to store consensus data in-memory until a transaction is mined. These quorums can be very large depending on the level of security required for the use case.

ChainLocks against 51% attacks

ChainLocks drastically reduce the risk of a 51% mining attack on the network. This feature allows a Long Living Masternode Quorum to sign a block and propagate a message to the network indicating that nodes should reject blocks at the same height that do not match the block specified by the quorum. This not only makes reaching consensus quick and unambiguous, it also makes chain reorganizations below that block impossible.