The cryptocurrency markets have seen whipsaw like price movements during October 2019 after the entire market cap slipped to $205 billion to create a 6 month low. However, the late October resurgence from Bitcoin allowed the market cap for the entire market to recover toward the $250 billion level, as of October 29th, 2019. Amongst the casualties lies Dash coin, a project that has suffered a massive 32% price fall over the past 90 days alone. The cryptocurrency had started the year off on a solid foundation after surging by a total of 185% from the February 2019, low of $65.50 to the June 2019 high of $186. However, after reaching this resistance Dash coin has reversed and dropped aggressively. The coin has fallen by a total of 65% since reaching the 2019 and has taken a nasty turn after dropping beneath the February low during the very recent Bitcoin bloodbath of October 2019.
Nevertheless, as Dash holders, we need not worry! Dash coin has a wealth of progression on the cards which will certainly help the network grow over the coming years. The team continues to be added to the top exchanges in the world and has also managed to overtake Litecoin in the number of active addresses. Furthermore, their string of partnerships and merchants combined with their upcoming decentralized application (dApps) sidechain project leads me to believe that Dash coin can surge by a total of 370% from the current price of $60 (as of October 24th, 2019), to reach my 2020 prediction of $300.
In this article, I’ll firstly cover a range of topics that I believe will influence Dash in reaching my $300 target during 2020, and then analyze Dash on the long term daily charts to highlight some areas of resistance on the way toward the target.
Digital Cash Provides A Complete Decentralized Autonomous Organization
Launched by Evan Duffield in 2014 Dash coin was originally focused on providing private transactions but the team eventually steered into facilitating secure, semi-private and fast transactions that can be settled in under 1 second. The team wanted to become an alternative to real-life cash, becoming a digital version giving birth to Digital cASH or Dash!
Built as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), the entire ecosystem is designed to split the governance model from the mining model by integrating both POW and POS into its blockchain. This dual-layered system sees the miners handling the creation of new blocks by using the X11 hashing algorithm - developed by Duffield himself. This algorithm uses 11 cryptographic functions at the same time to secure the network ensuring security even if one of the mining functions becomes vulnerable.
The second layer of the dual-layered system is the Master Nodes system. These Master nodes are in charge of all the governance-related parts of the DAO, using their voting power on proposal decisions as they see fit. They are also responsible for the execution of dash payment services such as InstantSend and PrivateSend. To run a Master node, the node operator must lock up 1000 DASH into that node, ensuring that they have the incentive to work in the best interest of the network. As a result, the master nodes get 45% block rewards with another 45% going to the regular mining nodes.
Currently, the Master Network is pretty damn decentralized as there are almost 5000 master nodes with 2,800 of them running in Europe.
Dash Have Created The First Self-Funded Project That Is Recurring
The DAO takes things further as it has a built-in a self-funding system with the remaining 10 percent of mining rewards going to new projects and protocol improvements and other development proposals. Dubbed as the world’s first recurring and self-funding coin, being able to boast the ability to have over $400,000 to spend in development, marketing, projects, and community projects. Everything related to the fund will be stored in the treasury with Master nodes voting on all governance proposals to be used by this fund.
To find out more about Dash, take a look at this great in-depth article.
People Continue To Adopt Dash
One key indicator of adoption is the number of active addresses on the network. Dash continues to increase in the number of active addresses and has more active addresses than Litecoin, showing a strong rate of adoption is still in play.
The following data from Santiment shows that people are also still talking about Dash on Reddit on a regular basis;
This metric shows that, although the market may be slumping, the rate of discussion continues as the community remains interested in the development of the project.
Further data from Santiment also shows that their Discord channel is still very active;
Dash A Big Factor In Venezuela
Venezuela is 2nd biggest market for Dash with hundreds of merchants accepting cryptocurrency each week within the region. This increase in adoption within Venezeula comes after the country moves to debase their currency causing major instability within the economy.
Ryan Taylor - CEO of Dash said;
“We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month,”
In fact, Dash has claimed that they have 24,000 Venezuelan Android wallets, up 9,000 from the early Summer 2019 figure showing great growth in the region in the latter stages of the year.
Even a Chicken shop, Church Chicken, has started accepting DASH payments in 10 locations within Venezuela
Dash Infrastructure Continues To Expand
Recently, Confify has recently integrated Dash into its service, adding tens of thousands of new merchants being able to accept dash as a payment method all over the globe.
The network also has an extensive network of ATMs as they have over 1000 active ATMs across the globe
Accepted On All Major Exchanges
Binance US recently added Dash to its newly launched US-based exchange. This latest edition now brings the USD trading pair, DASH/USD to the American customer base. This allows United States investors to trade DASH directly with the USD instead of having to go through the Tether option.
Dash recently has also been added to Coinbase in September. Added to the entire Coinbase platform including the wallet.
Development continues for Dash
Development continues for Dash and data from Santiment shows that Dash rarely takes a break from updating their codebase.
Dash Expected To Launch Scalable dApp Infrastructure
Dash had recently announced an upcoming sidechain for their Dash Platform which will be known as Platform Chain. This sidechain will run exclusively on the master node network and will provide a superior infrastructure to handle data for Decentralized Applications on the Dash Platform,
Platform chain is expected to make the network much cheaper and allow for a more efficient energy resource usage. The Platform Chain will also help to provide easy data verification methods for light clients.
The fact that the Platform Chain is running exclusively on the master node network will reduce the threat of the main chain being blogged up which provides a highly scalable route for dApp developers as master nodes are incentivized to keep their service of high quality.
DASH Coin (DASH) Price Analysis
LONG TERM - DAILY CHART
What Has Been Going On?
Taking a look at the daily chart above, we can see the clear bullish run that Dash had witnessed at the start of the year. The cryptocurrency surged from the February low of $65.54 to the June highs above $180. However, the cryptocurrency reversed at this level and began to drop aggressively.
The cryptocurrency went on to drop beneath both the 100 days EMA and 200 days EMA during July and continued to drop further as the year progressed. Dash Coin dropped by a total of 66% until support was found at $63 where a rebound was witnessed,
Are We Bullish Or Bearish (as of October 2019)?
As of October 2019, we have to be considered as bearish - especially considering the previous 66% price fall. However, for this bearish run to continue, we would need to see Dash coin drop further lower and penetrate beneath the December 2018 low of $58. If Dash coin does drop beneath $58 then my 2020 price prediction may have to slightly be re-adjusted. Nevertheless, the late October price rebound does provide some hope that Dash coin will not sink to multi-year lows toward the end of 2019.
Where Is The Resistance On The Way Up TO $300?
If Dash continues to rebound from the current level of support, initial strong resistance will be located at the 100-days EMA at around $90 and at the 200-days EMA at around $100. Above this, higher resistance is expected at $119, $124, $142, and $150. Strong resistance above this is then to be expected at the long term bearish .236 Fibonacci Retracement level priced at $170. This long term bearish Fibonacci Retracement level is measured from the April 2018 high to the December 2018 low.
If the buyers can continue to cause Dash to rise further higher above $180 and $200, higher resistance is then located at $208 and $224 which are the 1.272 and 1.414 Fibonacci Extensions, respectively. This is followed up with resistance at $240 (long term bearish .328 Fibonacci Retracement level) and $247 (1.618 Fibonacci Extension level).
Before being able to make an attempt at the 2020 target at $300, Dash coin will firstly need to contest resistance at $268, $280, and $294 (long term bearish .5 Fibonacci Retracement level). If the bulls can clear these levels of resistance, they will be free to make an attempt at the $300 target level.
Conclusion
Dash Coin may have witnessed a rollercoaster year in price action during 2019 but the development continues to progress at a strong pace. The team has created a system that will allow for the development of Dash to continue for many years to come as everything is self-funded by the network. Furthermore, the Dash infrastructure only continues to expand as Santiment data suggests that adoption continues to increase. With their upcoming release of Platform Chain, Dash will progress to new heights as they introduce an option for developers to deploy scalable dApps on their platform.
To reach the 2002 target of $300, Dash will firstly need to contest resistance at $100, $120, $150, $170, and $180. This is followed with resistance at $200, $240, $250, $268m and $294.
