The aptly-named Dash is streaking up the market ladder with an increase in value of over 100% over the past year. Hovering around the $1,250 level, the digital cash currency has overtaken even Ether in its speed of growth.

Dash\'s success could be attributed to its adopting a masternode solution to the scaling problem. With block nodes becoming so big they were unwieldy, Dash decided to open decision-making to a wider base, offering holders of 1,000 Dash the option to create a masternode. Masternode holders then have the right to vote on financial decisions, including allocation of the budget and the direction of the currency.

As business increases, so does Dash\'s Blockchain. To maintain its policy of having all the transaction data available on the Blockchain, Dash recently activated new 2MB blocks. As the number of masternodes increases, so does the number of full copies of the Blockchain, which can then expand its overall computing capacity and carry out other network tasks. For this service each masternode receives a payment of 45% of Dash\'s whole block reward, and this income then enables masternode owners to upgrade their servers, and thus to generate yet more nodes. Ultimately, bigger blocks and more power could see the network hosting millions of users in a scaled expansion of nodes.