DASH is Forging its own Path Says Analyst

December 3, 2017 by Jon Southurst 3 Comments

Something unusual happened in the cryptocurrency market caps last week. On those few days of carnage when nearly every top 50 asset on CoinMarketCap turned red, DASH posted double-figure gains. How did a single asset manage to decouple from the rest in such a stark way? Investing.com’s Tanzeel Akhtar says it’s a combination of good timing and DASH’s promotion strategy.

Also read: UK to Tighten Bitcoin Trading Regulation, Prices Drop

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DASH’s Marketing and Deals

Since the beginning of November 2017, DASH has gone from around $270 USD to its current $764. Per unit, it’s the most valuable non-bitcoin-derived digital asset.

KuvaCash logo

We’ve reported previously that the “privacy coin” sometimes heads in the opposite direction while other coins go south. But even those disparities were smaller than the ones we saw last week.

Akhtar pointed to DASH’s recent deal with KuvaCash, a remittance and money exchange service that’s moving into countries like Zimbabwe. DASH is now its official blockchain medium of exchange.

Despite the hype, cryptocurrency use is pretty nascent in that region — but DASH may be fortuitous in its timing, promoting itself at a time of political turmoil.

The joint push with KuvaCash cost DASH $550,000 USD, one of its most expensive ventures yet. But that’s another unique point: unlike other cryptocurrency projects, it has a governance model with its own treasury.

This allows DASH to make partnerships and do sponsorship deals where others simply don’t have the resources. Whether you like the model or not, it’s the attribute getting the most attention outside the community.

Attention Increases Price Increases Attention

Those deals have pricked up the ears of mainstream reporters, Akhtar said. Most non-bitcoin assets barely get a mention outside the industry media, and mainstream name recognition of most altcoins is an asterisk.

The $700+ price tag probably doesn’t hurt either — thus begins the circular process of high price begetting attention, which raises the price, etc.

Most of the action is happening on the wild trading party that is Korea’s Bithumb, too. Whatever its technical and administrative shortcomings, Bithumb is where the big moves are happening in late 2017 and DASH is in its top 10 — trading over $20 million USD in the past 24 hours.

For the record, over $23.4 million in DASH traded at Binance as well. Asian traders, or at least traders on Asian exchanges, see it as a hot commodity.

Traders, Users Just Looking for Something New?

Akhtar’s last point is also one we’ve suspected — cryptocurrency speculators are tiring of Bitcoin’s squabbles and technical limitations. The main protocol software recently upgraded to version 12.2, increasing the transaction block size to 2MB and reducing transaction fees 10 times. But could it survive Bitcoin-like traffic loads?

DASH’s faster speeds, respectable price and now prominence may be boosting its appeal as an alternative cryptocurrency. Interestingly though, its origins as Darkcoin and a privacy-oriented cryptocoin often don’t get a mention these days. Akhtar’s article only touches on it briefly, and doesn’t tout it as a main drawcard.

Could it be that traders, investors and even users are simply looking for something new? And when they do, DASH is the first logo they see.

Author: Jon Southurst
Original link: https://bitsonline.com/dash-forging-path-analyst/