How Dash transactions work

Dash transactions move between two electronic wallets and are secured by a digital signature. As with bitcoin, all transactions are public and their history can be traced back to the first coins.

It is fine to hold Dash if you are a trader waiting for the price to rise, but money exists to be spent. Here is what happens when you spend your Dash.

What a Dash transaction looks like

Suppose Alice is friends with Bob and has recently told him about Dash. She wants him to make an investment, and Alice sends Bob a small amount of coins. The transaction includes three parts:

• Inputs. A record of the Dash address from which Alice received her Dash (for example, if she received them from her friend Ted, his address will be shown).
• Amount. The number of Dash Alice is sending to Bob.
• Outputs. Bob’s Dash address.

How to make a transaction

To send cryptocurrency you need a wallet with two main components: a public Dash address and a private key. A Dash address is generated randomly from a combination of letters and numbers.

The private key looks similar—a string of letters and numbers—but unlike your Dash address, it must be kept secret.

Your wallet is like a secure safe‑deposit box with a glass door. Everyone can see what is in it, but it is locked by the private key. To open it, take something out or put something in, you must know that key.

When Alice wants to send coins to Bob, she uses her private key to sign a message containing the inputs, outputs and amount. Alice then broadcasts the data from her wallet to the Dash network.

What happens after you send

Once sent, miners or masternodes verify the transaction and record it in a block. Processing differs depending on whether it uses InstantX or is a standard transaction.

A standard transaction is accepted with zero block confirmations and, on receipt, is called an unconfirmed transaction. In about two minutes a block is mined and the transaction is recorded on the blockchain.

It becomes a secured transaction after six confirmations, typically within 15 minutes. Dash offers a faster alternative called InstantX.

InstantX is a technology invented by Evan Duffield. It uses the masternode network to confirm transactions instantly and eliminate zero‑confirmation risk for retailers and other stakeholders.

Masternodes lock a transaction via InstantX and announce it to the rest of the network as the first and only valid one, ignoring conflicting transactions.

This typically takes 1–4 seconds, a speed no other cryptocurrency has achieved so far. Even so, the mining network still secures the transaction and it will be included in the blockchain.

Instead of six confirmations for ordinary operations, the recipient’s wallet notes six InstantX‑validated blocks within seconds. InstantX also checks the likelihood of a double‑spend attack by locking transactions via masternodes on the network’s second tier—one of Dash’s distinctive features.

Using InstantX costs the sender 0.01 DASH per transaction, though the fee may change soon.

About Dash transaction fees

Transaction fees are calculated with several factors in mind. Miners and masternode operators charge for processing a transaction.

Now that you know how transactions work, the next step is to buy Dash—on a cryptocurrency exchange. It is better to use one with high trading volumes in this cryptocurrency. Because competition is high on such venues, you can be confident of getting the best purchase price.

For example, you can buy Dash on LiveCoin. The exchange does not charge an extra fee for cryptocurrency withdrawals (you pay only the network fee of 0.0001 DASH). For small purchases this is a highly attractive advantage. The exchange has a simple, user‑friendly bilingual interface and extras such as an address book for crypto wallets, two‑factor authentication and much more.

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