The currency was launched in January 2014 as “Xcoin” by Evan Duffield, as a fork of the Bitcoin protocol. It is an altcoin and in its early days it was subject to pump and dump speculation.It was rebranded as Darkcoin, which received press from the media as being used in dark net markets. In March 2015, it rebranded again with the name Dash as a portmanteau of ‘digital cash’. As of August 2016, Dash is no longer used in any major dark net markets worth noting.

    In early 2017 Duffield, who lived in the Phoenix area, and some other people working on Dash took space in a business incubator at Arizona State University. The Dash DAO later funded a blockchain research lab at ASU.

As of April 2018, Dash’s market capitalization was around $4.3 billion and it was one of the top 12 cryptocurrencies.

As of February 2019, Dash was the most popular cryptocurrency in Venezuela according to Der Spiegel.