How to Buy Dash in 3 Simple Steps – A Beginner’s Guide

Introduction to DASH trading

Dash is a cryptocurrency platform with an emphasis on privacy, decentralization and acceleration of transactions. Taking into consideration all the aforementioned advantages, it poses as a viable alternative to Bitcoin and Ethereum. The company’s team consists of about 50 developers who are currently working on improving the network’s protocol. As of 2018, Dash has the 13^th biggest market cap among all the cryptocurrencies, and its value keeps constantly increasing.

The Main Pros

The founder of Dash states that there are numerous ways of how you can spend the cryptocurrency. Because of the PrivateSend feature, all transactions are completely anonymous. Masternodes mix up coins and generate completely new addresses which makes it impossible to trace a certain transaction.

Another important feature is called InstantSend which reduces the payment confirmation time to virtually a single second. Fast transactions are crucially important for integrating cryptocurrencies in the global financial system. Bitcoin, for instance, draws a lot of criticism because of its long confirmation time that varies anywhere from 10 minus to a whole day. Moreover, InstantSend effectively solves the issue of double-spending when the same coin can be spent several times. This problem isn’t typical for fiat money since it is impossible to reduplicate them. However, the authenticity of cryptocurrencies still raises concerns.

In short, Dash makes it possible to privately make ordinary transactions without sacrificing convenience or speed.

Dash or Bitcoin?

Without a doubt, Dash is one of the most popular altcoins on the market, but can it stand competition against Bitcoin? Bitcoin still firmly holds the first place after an unprecedented breakthrough in 2017. However, Dash’s future looks more promising thanks to the aforementioned features which make transactions fast and secure. Nobody in the real world will be able to buy groceries with Bitcoin: its protocol would need to undergo significant changes in order to do that.

card

Beginner’s Guide to Buying Dash

1. Create a Dash Wallet

If you are planning to invest your money in Dash, the first thing that you have to do is to create a new wallet that would allow you to store your coins. There are numerous alternatives that you may consider: hot wallets, semi-cold wallets or cold wallets. Let’s find out what advantages each of these options has.

Hot Wallets

Basically, these are all online-wallets. You can directly store your coins on a certain exchange or withdraw your money to an online-wallet of your choice. The most obvious choice would be Jaxx wallet which is available for all popular platform. Jaxx can function as a simple Google Chrome extension or as a mobile app. Hot wallets are good for beginners who want to understand how cryptocurrency trading works, but they are hardly suitable for long-term investment purposes, since they provide users with only a minimal layer of security.

Cold Wallets

Before describing cold wallets, it is also worth mentioning semi-cold wallets which remain in an intermediate position. Semi-cold wallets are downloaded on a computer and can be used offline, so technically they are similar to a hardware wallet. It is advisable to install a software wallet on a computer without an Internet connection in order to eliminate the possibility of a phishing attack.

The most common type of cold storage is a hardware wallet. It is a device which is specifically designed for storing cryptocurrency. The money are stored offline, but the device has to be connected to your computer in order to conduct a transaction. Nevertheless, hardware wallets are considered to be completely secure because you actually have to press a mechanic button on the device for the transaction to be completed.

There hasn’t been a single case of hardware wallets being hacked by scammers, so that might be comforting for those individuals who are concerned about the safety of the cold storage. There are plenty of hard wallet brands, but it is safe to say that such brands as Trezor.io and Ledger are definitely dominating in this niche. Trezor.io and Ledger Nano S are both on par when it comes to functionality, price and safety features.

2. Purchase Dash

Those who have been in the cryptocurrency world for more than a year may remember that it was extremely difficult to purchase Bitcoin during the earliest days of its existence. Even now buying Dash may be much harder than you initially think. In fact, not all exchanges allow you to directly buy Dash with fiat money. It is much easier to buy Dash if you already own Bitcoins and simply trade it for Dash.

Buying Dash with a Credit Card/Wire Transfer

CEX.IO is one of the acceptable options if you want to buy Dash with money. Dash trading was launched on this reputable London-based exchange in 2016. There are currently four trading pairs that include Dash. If you want to buy Dash via CEX.IO, you can deposit money either with the help of your credit card or via wire transfer. CEX.IO is one of the most global exchange services that is supported almost in the majority of countries.

Bitfinex is a well-known Asian exchange based in Hong Kong. Dash is among 13 cryptocurrencies that are supported by Bitfinex. Beware of the fact that US investors are not able to use this exchange anymore, so they will have to look for another option. As any other exchange service, Bitfinex requires ID verification for conducting transactions (the average time of verification is about two weeks).

eToro is yet another exchange for European customers which is exclusively suitable for trading purposes. It does not allow users to conduct any transactions with a third party. eToro provides its users with useful trading instruments that make it possible to speculate on price and later exchange crypto into fiat money. Before making any investments, pay attention to the fact that the cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile. Since cryptocurrencies are not regulated by the EU, you take a significant risk if you decide to invest a substantial amount of money in any altcoin.

You may pay attention to another European exchange which is called

BitPanda. This service offers a lot of payment methods, but it has major drawbacks like low buying limits (only 600 EUR) and a small number of available countries. If you deposit money via SEPA, then AnyCoinDirect will also come in handy.

Speaking of US brokers that allow purchasing Dash,

Kraken is probably the most prominent one. This exchange is also widely popular in Europe because of its high trading volume. Both credit card payment and wire transfer are available for Kraken users. Kraken also requires you to submit documents for verification, but it usually takes only a couple of days for an account to be confirmed.

Buying Dash with Cash

You can use http://coinatmradar.com in order to find a Bitcoin ATM that also supports altcoins. This useful online tool helps to track the nearest ATMs in your area. The most obvious choice is General Bytes Bitcoin ATM which is currently available in many states of the USA. As of 2018, General Bytes is the largest Dash-supporting ATM network in the world. Moreover, the team currently is working on creating integrating Dash into the Lamassu ATM network that currently works only with Bitcoin. That would potentially make Dash more accessible to general public that isn’t knowledgeable enough about the peculiarities of online trading.

In May 2017, Dash also made an announcement about its partnership with Wall of Coins, a popular online service that allows buying cryptocurrency with paper cash by simply making a deposit in your local bank. Wall of Coins is constantly expanding the list of available counties with many European countries like Latvia and Poland already being on it. While using ATM comes with rather draconian fees, that’s not the case with Wall of Coins since they are not charging any fees for buying and selling cryptocurrency. Moreover, you are basically getting Dash at its current market price, so all transactions are quick and inexpensive. The money can be deposited to your account in about 15 minutes.

3. Withdraw Dash to a Wallet

Leaving your money on an exchange is never a good idea as they can be easily compromised by hackers. Always remember to send your Dash coins to your wallet. Numerous kinds of wallets that are suitable for storing Dash were described above.