Dash is derivative of Litecoin, which itself is a derivative of Bitcoin. It was created by Evan Duffield in January of 2014. It was originally known as Darkcoin but later rebranded as Dash in March of 2015. It uses a mix of miners and masternodes to validate transactions. A unique feature of Dash is that it ensures network security by asking all masternodes to stake at least 1,000 DASH in cold storage. Transaction speed can be increased through masternode only validation which excludes miners. Privacy can also be enabled through “PrivateSend” transactions that mix units. Dash has a voting system in place that can enable quick changes in governance if required rather than having a hard fork.