Dash has debuted FastPass, a network of ecosystem partners dedicated to trading which leverage Dash’s special features of InstantSend and ChainLocks. The FastPass designation is intended to denote services where users can expect Dash transactions to be settled much faster, providing a vastly improved trading experience and opening up arbitrage opportunities.
Announced this week, Dash has debuted the FastPass designation for supporting exchanges and services which explicitly recognize InstantSend and ChainLocks, two security-improving innovations by Dash which enable transaction security to be achieved much faster than in traditional proof-of-work chains. According to Dash Core Group Business Development Manager Omar Hamwi, users and partners in the FastPass ecosystem enjoy a much improved trading experience over non-participating services:
“We’re not only bringing value to the Dash Network but to our FastPass partners and their users as well. This not only helps support our strategic partners but also raises awareness to users as to where they can experience what makes Dash best for traders. We have seen that utilizing Dash through our partners with this enhanced user experience, traders will see that Dash is scalable, easy, near-instant, secure, and highly affordable to transact and move between FastPass partner exchanges.”
The growing list of FastPass participants at time of writing includes nine exchanges, two services offering margin trading services, four offering derivatives, two investment platforms, seven OTC (over-the-counter) trading services, two trading bots, two analytics platforms, four lending platforms, two custody services, and seven staking services. These services can be expected to explicitly support one or more of Dash’s advanced features from fast deposits due to ChainLocks, even faster deposits due to InstantSend, staking rewards due to masternodes, masternode-specific services such as voting in Dash’s DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), etc.
The significant speed advantage of InstantSend- and ChainLocks-enabled services
According to Carlo P. Las Marias, Co-Founder and COO of FastPass partner Hummingbot trading bot service, Dashs’ special features provide the opportunity to significantly improve his product’s user experience:
“Hummingbot is proud to be a Dash FastPass Accredited Partner. Dash’s impressive and unrivaled speed, security and low cost transaction fees, provides us another building block to further develop and enhance the Hummingbot user and trading experience. Dash’s InstantSend and ChainLocks functionality, allowing near-instant deposits and withdrawals, will enable new automated trading strategies that take advantage of market and arbitrage opportunities across the Dash FastPass Network of partner exchanges and services.”
ChainLocks is an advanced security feature leveraging the Dash masternode network to make a block permanent, and its transactions irreversible, once a single confirmation has been received. In a network like Dash with a 2.5-minute average block time, this means transaction permanence in 2.5 minutes. For example, Coinbase considers a Dash deposit final after two confirmations (requiring an extra unneeded confirmation as an additional precautionary measure), or about five minutes, while Litecoin requires 12 confirmations, or about 30 minutes with a similar 2.5-minute block time. Bitcoin deposits require three confirmations or about 30+ minutes as well, meaning that a Dash deposit will be recognized as final a full six times faster (which could be improved to 12 times faster as Coinbase’s familiarity with the ChainLocks technology grows).
InstantSend is another technology leveraging masternodes to lock in Dash transactions in under two seconds, preventing them from being changed until they are confirmed in a block (at which point they become permanent due to ChainLocks). This level of security is considered by many services as largely sufficient to consider a transaction as permanent instantly. Dash’s full list of exchanges counts 18 exchanges and brokers recognizing InstantSend deposits at time of writing.
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