In this post I will attempt to compare two cryptocurrencies that both have privacy features, DASH and ZenCash (ZEN)! These two coins are at very different stages in their development cycle. This is reflected in their different circulating supply, price and marketcap. Dash was released three and a half years ago, in January 2014, which in the cryptocurrency space makes it something of a veteran. Today Dash is worth just over $180 a coin, has a circulating supply just over 7.3 million, and has a marketcap of over $1.3 billion. Not bad for three and a half years of development. By contrast Zencash - released less than a month ago as fork of and evolution of an earlier community based zkSNARKs implementation - today is worth $6.70 a coin, has a circulation just over 1.5 million, and a market cap of approximately $10 million.

Dash and ZenCash have fundamental differences above and beyond obvious differences of time in market, development stage and market weight. But first I would like to discuss similarities between the coins. Dash and ZenCash both have a funded development model whereby a portion of the block reward is reserved to fund the development of the project, for example hiring staff, paying consultants, marketing and the like. This is different from the situation with other better known coins like Bitcoin where the miners receive the 100% of the block reward. For Dash, 10% of the block reward is reserved for treasury to pay for development and promotion of the coin, and the remaining 90% is split 50/50 between miners and master node operators so each of these parties get 45% of the block reward. ZenCash is quite similar in that 8.5% of the block reward is reserved for the DAO and the core team to fund developers, outreach, and partnerships.

I would suggest increasing the masternode rewards to around 20%, that would assure you have enough to run instant transactions and such. Just my 2 cents. After being in the crypto space for the last 6 months (it feels like years!), we decided that we wanted to round out our portfolio by adding a mining rig. While we currently have an Antminer D3 on order (that is basically worthless), we wanted to supplement that mining with a 6 card GPU mining rig. We are relatively new to. ZenCash Team. ZenCash founders and. And technical operational expertise to the Zen organization. And became involved with cryptocurrencies after buying an ASIC.

This is similar to Dash, ie. A funded treasury to fund the coin’s development. ZenCash will have secure nodes.

The complete details of the stake requirement and incentive entitlement of ZenCash secure nodes is yet to be completely finalised, but one proposal has been that they will receive 3.5% of the block reward. This is in some ways similar to Dash masternodes, but with a much smaller share of the block reward, although ZenCash nodes will also be different in ways that will be explained below. Dash and ZenCash also have similarities to Bitcoin, and each other, with a total maximum coin supply of 21 million. ZenCash and Dash are also fundamentally different in key ways. Dash has a coin mixing option called PrivateSend.

This mixing is supposedly one of the masternodes key jobs - although I will discuss below my thoughts on the real purpose of Dash masternodes. PrivateSend is better viewed as a privacy enhancing feature, rather than a feature that provides a private transaction. I have written elsewhere that simply mixing one’s transaction with say three other people’s transactions is not sufficient to stop a resourced adversary from tracing links in the broader network (Dash blockchain) to “see through” the mixing process, and identify the true sender and recipient. PrivateSend does not conceal the amount sent. ZenCash on the other hand implements a very recent zero knowledge cryptographic protocol known as zkSNARKs, which shields both the sender address, recipient address, and the amount sent. This process implements zero knowledge cryptography, so there is no mixing process involved and therefore no mixing process an advanced adversary could compromise through network analysis.

Another difference is Dash mining has now moved to ASICs, whereas ZenCash uses the Equihash algorithm and is not mined with ASICs. Equihash is considered far more ASIC resistant than Dash’s X11, and this in fact appears to be the case as X11 mining quickly transitioned to ASICs. ASIC resistant mining algorithms are considered to promote better decentralization of mining on the network, whereas ASICs - due to their specialization and high price - promote centralization.

Greater decentralization is considered to better secure the network, or, to put it better, greater centralization increases risks to the security of the network. I wish to now discuss strengths and weaknesses with both coins. Beginning with Dash, its masternode system and governance model have been a resounding success. It paid for marketing and all sorts of other things that anyone who has kept an eye on coinmarketcap.com knows worked very well. In fact, ZenCash was almost certainly guided by the success of this model when deciding to itself reserve 8.5% of the block reward for treasury. Dash masternodes clearly reduced the supply of the coin in the market and this too drove up prices.

ZenCash is fairly clearly superior in terms of privacy to Dash, and this is important for some people. ZenCash secure nodes, while they will not be incentivized to the degree that Dash masternodes are, will be sufficiently incentivized to ensure their profitable operation. ZenCash nodes also fulfill a genuine and necessary role on the network in addition to reducing circulating supply and potentially putting upward pressure on the coin price. They’ll provide constant encryption, including certificated encryption, and domain fronting. This will encrypt the entire network, and will have practical implications like holding a permanent and encrypted InterPlanetary File System available to ZenCash users. Dash and ZenCash are also not without weaknesses. Dash, back when it was called Darkcoin, had a shady start, with about 10% of the final total supply of 21 million instantly mined in the first couple of days be the founder and his associates.

This was because nobody else had any working mining software and so couldn’t mine. But to be fair, he’s spent the last several years dedicated to Dash, and I’m sure there would not be a single early Dash investor who would hold this against him. In fact there would be numerous millionaires among those early investors who bought in when it was $2.00. Dash masternodes also don’t really serve a purpose other than to starve supply of the coin and push the price up.

This has been great up until now, but now Dash wants to continue growth by becoming a mainstream payments system with its development Evolution. It’s hard to see how this squares with having well over 50% of the coin supply out of circulation as masternode stakes. ZenCash is not without its embarrassing moments either. One of the former developers had something of a meltdown and attacked the coin.

Fortunately the rest of the team managed this, and managed his exit, but still not a good look. Of course, ZenCash is also very early in its development. It has great plans, and a good model, but it will need to implement.

Overall, what are my views on these two coins? I like both of them. I think both have excellent funding models that allow proper development and marketing and I think both have dedicated, capable teams. I think both have the opportunity to rise in price, although given its much smaller marketcap and earlier stage of development I view ZenCash as having more opportunity for exponential growth. ZenCash nodes will also provide an opportunity for passive returns, the same way Dash masternodes did before the exponential price rise of Dash made them an unaffordable investment for most. Dash masternodes are so highly rewarded and numerous that with over 50% of the supply staked to them I do worry about it, notwithstanding their success in driving the price up to this point.

To me having over 50% of possible supply out of circulation is quite at odds with their Evolution goal to become a widely adopted mass payment system. Then again, they’ve overcome other challenges in the past, so perhaps they can again. Well, anyway good luck out there on these wild seas!!

• • • • • • • • • • • • • Why Do I Want to Mine with a GPU Miner versus a Bitcoin Miner? The advantage of buying a GPU Rig instead of a Bitcoin Miner such as the Bitmain Antminer S9 is that the GPU Miner allows you to mine Altcoins, such as Ethereum, Monero, Expanse, and much more. These are considerably easier to mine with a GPU Rig compared to mining Bitcoin with a Bitcoin Rig. Altcoins can be 'traded' on exchanges for Bitcoin anyway if you desire.

Over the years your GPU Rig will allow you to mine the most valuable Altcoin at the time, by changing your pool settings in the config file, and even allows you a higher resale value because it consists of high-end graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, frames and more that are easier to resell on the market than a Bitcoin Rig alone. Also, a Bitcoin Rig will have a certain power or hashrate to it, and over time this power will hash less and less as the difficulty factor of Bitcoin rises, the Bitcoin Rig will mine less and be less valuable for resale simultaneously. With a GPU Rig, you can select coins that are meant for the small guys like us, giving us an advantage by trading Altcoins for Bitcoins in a tech-heavy market for years.” What cryptocurrencies can I mine on Shark mining rigs? You can mine any cryptocurrencies that have miners with Nvidia CUDA support, for example, these ones: • Zcash • Ethereum • Ethereum Classic • Decred • DigiByte • Expanse • Feathercoin • Hush • LBRY Credits • MonaCoin • Musicoin • Pascal Coin • Siacoin • Vertcoin • Zclassic • Zcoin • Zcash • ZenCash Can You Configure My GPU Rig so That I Just Turn It On and It Works?

Yes, one of the advantages of purchasing through sharkmining.com is that if you prefer, we offer custom built Rigs with your wallet already setup in the configuration file. This makes our rigs turn-key in that you can open the box, plug it in, and within minutes you are hashing to your wallet.

Depending on the pool you join ( EtherMine.org etc ) you can adjust your payout amounts to payout hourly, daily, weekly etc to your exchange. This is ideal for noobs who are able to move the crypto from exchange to wallet etc but can't build or configure their own miner and just want it done for them.

Why do your 6 GPU and 9 GPU rigs consist of several 3 GPU rigs, each with its own power supply, CPU, and motherboard? Why not make one big rig with 6 GPUs? How Much Money Do Ethereum Classic ETC Miners Make. Our first rig models were equipped with 6 GPUs, one power supply, and one motherboard. After additional testing and feedback from our customers, our engineers have concluded that this design has several major disadvantages.

Compared to mining rigs with one motherboard and one power supply, our mining rigs are better in several key areas: 1. A 1600 power supply that is used for 6 GPU rig operates under the maximum rated load or even slightly above it, so the power supply can deteriorate relatively quickly. In our case, you will receive 2 1000W power supply, for a total power of 2000W.

Flexibility If you connect a 1600W mining rig into a regular home power outlet, there is a risk to overload the electrical system, so the breaker will often cut out the power because the electrical system is already used at the maximum capacity, so you would not be able to connect any additional electrical appliances. With 1000W mining rigs, you will have more flexibility, because you can place your rigs in different places at your home and the electrical system would not be overloaded. Heat dissipation. A smaller mining rig produces less heat, so you can place them more effectively and there would be no need to constantly run the AC to cool the rigs. Shipping and transportation. 6 GPU rigs are very heavy and have a greater risk to be damaged in shipping. If you are buying a 6 GPU mining rig, the changes that it would be bend and damaged in shipping are higher.

We ship all the rigs in industrial heavy duty packaging, each rig as a separate package, so there is no risk to receive a damaged rig. How Long Will It Take for the Miner to Pay for Itself / ROI? This depends on many factors including the coin you choose, the amount of hashpower that your rig has when purchased and more. Most of our rigs will ROI in under a year, which beats the newest Bitcoin Rig by months and months.

Some people keep their mined coin for a while, for example, they will hold their Ethereum for months and keep it in the exchange until they want to 'trade' for Bitcoin at the most advantageous time. Others like to cash out daily, and with the right setup with Kraken or Coinbase, you can have your miner paying you daily cash to your real bank account / fiat money account. Do You Offer Support If I Am Having Trouble With My Miner? Yes, we offer support by phone, email and support form. We handle phone calls from 9a - 6p EST.

Click on the Support Button at the top right to reach us! What Is Your Return Policy on Rigs or Hardware? You can find our Returns & Refunds Policy here: What Crypto Exchanges / Wallets Do You Suggest? You are welcome to use any exchange you'd like that accepts the Altcoin you are mining.

For most Altcoins, popular exchanges include Poloniex or Kraken. For Cryptonote coins like Monero, Bytecoin and such there is HitBTC. For sending funds from an exchange to a wallet, we suggest using an online wallet such as Coinbase which allows you to withdraw to your regular / fiat bank account. We currently also support Changelly, the lowest fee exchange for your top Altcoin trading at.05% instead of the usual 1% fee. Do You Offer Discounts on Bulk Purchases?

Yes, we offer discounts on bulk purchases, please contact us via the support form with the details on what you'd like to do / how many of which product etc. Should I use the special mining GPUs? We do not recommend this because mining GPUs comes with only limited 3 months warranty and have no resale value as they do not have monitor ports. I’ve opened my box, what do I do now?

Remove ALL the bubble wrap, tie wraps, etc. Make sure you can see the fan side on the power source from the top.

Plug in a live internet cable to this socket. Plug your unit into a normal electrical 110V receptacle. I didn’t have a wallet address but now I do, how do I put it in? Call our toll free line, we can remotely access your rig with Team Viewer and help you put that in, it takes one minute.

I want to buy more, can I mine with multiple machines? As long as you have a stable internet connection, and separate the rigs onto different receptacles, it will work fine. Most receptacles are on a 15 amp breaker, if the breakers shut off, you need to try different plugs in order to mine multiple rigs in that room on one receptacle.