#2 - Introduction

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,210
Hello, my name is Evan Duffield and I am
the founder and lead developer of Dash.

2
00:00:06,210 --> 00:00:11,070
And this is a video series about Dash. And so
in this video,

3
00:00:11,070 --> 00:00:15,339
this is just an introduction to Dash at
a really high level of all of the basic

4
00:00:15,339 --> 00:00:21,800
concepts of the technology. So to start,
what exactly is Bitcoin? well, Bitcoin is

5
00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:27,330
a revolutionary technology and it is
basically a currency that operates

6
00:00:27,330 --> 00:00:32,680
without a central bank, And what that
means is anyone on the network can

7
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:38,050
actually send money from anywhere to
anywhere with no one in between.

8
00:00:38,050 --> 00:00:43,100
It's also more anonymous than other
digital alternatives and it's actually

9
00:00:43,100 --> 00:00:48,690
the very first of its kind. So if Bitcoin
is so amazing

10
00:00:48,690 --> 00:00:54,469
why are we working on Dash? The issue is
Bitcoin isn't perfect and the Bitcoin

11
00:00:54,469 --> 00:00:59,949
project is going in a different
direction than where we wanted to go and

12
00:00:59,949 --> 00:01:04,970
in a free market we should explore as
many ideas as possible so that the best

13
00:01:04,970 --> 00:01:11,650
ideas rise to the top and benefit
everyone. And so, some of the issues with

14
00:01:11,650 --> 00:01:16,869
Bitcoin are that it is slower than
centralized systems and it lacks some

15
00:01:16,869 --> 00:01:22,229
things that centralized corporations do
really well like having a governance and

16
00:01:22,229 --> 00:01:28,790
management methodology plus a funding
source that's recurring in stable. And on

17
00:01:28,790 --> 00:01:35,430
top of that it has a lot of economic
issues and we strive to solve all of

18
00:01:35,430 --> 00:01:41,689
these issues within Dash. What exactly
is dash? Well Dash stands for Digital-Cash

19
00:01:41,689 --> 00:01:47,640
and what that means is it's an alturnative
to cash that's just purely on the

20
00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:54,380
internet and its decentralized in nature
in just purely digital. It's also

21
00:01:54,380 --> 00:02:01,850
fungible which means that any two single
units of Dash are interchangeable and

22
00:02:01,850 --> 00:02:04,799
that no one to know the difference
between them because they have no

23
00:02:04,799 --> 00:02:11,770
history. There's also privacy on the
network and privacy is a highly valued

24
00:02:11,770 --> 00:02:18,070
thing within the Dash ecosystem. We have very
quick transaction speed using some innovative

25
00:02:18,070 --> 00:02:24,590
features. And we incentivize network
participation. We also have methodologies

26
00:02:24,590 --> 00:02:29,140
for governing the currency that are very
well defined so that we don't run into

27
00:02:29,140 --> 00:02:34,890
roadblocks where the community can tell
where we're going. And this also allows

28
00:02:34,890 --> 00:02:39,130
the community to participate in the
decision-making process of our currency.

29
00:02:39,130 --> 00:02:46,320
And beyond that we have permanent
returning funding. And then beyond all of

30
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:51,290
these features that the currency has, we
have set up the very first Virtual

31
00:02:51,290 --> 00:02:56,230
Corporation. One of the biggest
differentiators between Dash and other

32
00:02:56,230 --> 00:03:02,660
projects is that we are constantly
innovating within the Dash ecosystem.

33
00:03:02,660 --> 00:03:09,630
And we do this by innovating at the core
protocol level. What we want to do is to

34
00:03:09,630 --> 00:03:15,070
create all of the services that
a currency needs in completely

35
00:03:15,070 --> 00:03:19,200
decentralized ways so that they are
available to all of the users on the

36
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:24,150
network forever. And this is a really
important time within Dash to get all

37
00:03:24,150 --> 00:03:30,400
of this technology right, before we
actually have a stable maintainable

38
00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:36,980
infrastructure for the future. In the
Bitcoin ecosystem they actually had to

39
00:03:36,980 --> 00:03:42,070
lock down experimentation early on
because it drew so much investment that

40
00:03:42,070 --> 00:03:46,360
they actually wanted to protect that
investment and keep the network

41
00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:52,470
completely stable and we feel like they
left a lot of room for improvement and

42
00:03:52,470 --> 00:03:56,640
so that's where we come in and we're
trying to implement the things like

43
00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:01,830
privacy instant transactions incentives
all the way around using only

44
00:04:01,830 --> 00:04:06,570
decentralized technologies that are
available forever to the entire network.

45
00:04:06,570 --> 00:04:13,230
Earlier we had said that in the Bitcoin
ecosystem transactions speeds had

46
00:04:13,230 --> 00:04:18,700
a lot of room for improvement and it's
true and Bitcoin transactions

47
00:04:18,700 --> 00:04:22,960
pick up to about 60 minutes to have
confidence that they actually won't be

48
00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:28,700
double spent against. And what it means is
you can send a transaction on a

49
00:04:28,700 --> 00:04:33,840
decentralized network so you promise to
give somebody money and then you actually

50
00:04:33,840 --> 00:04:37,830
take away that promise and someone else
gets the money or you spend the money

51
00:04:37,830 --> 00:04:39,370
back to yourself in some way.

52
00:04:39,370 --> 00:04:45,100
Well in dash we actually circumvent this
problem entirely and so we can get

53
00:04:45,100 --> 00:04:51,620
confirmation of a transaction within one
second and it's amazing because they're

54
00:04:51,620 --> 00:04:57,890
also completely double spend proof. We
use decentralized Oracle's to do this or our

55
00:04:57,890 --> 00:05:02,960
sub quorum system. So on Dash you can
make a promise about sending money to

56
00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:07,870
a given party and then utilizing the
network you actually have to keep that

57
00:05:07,870 --> 00:05:12,070
promise. This is actually really
important for point of sale type

58
00:05:12,070 --> 00:05:17,780
situations where you go into a merchant
and you buy something and then you want

59
00:05:17,780 --> 00:05:22,780
to walk out of the store immediately. And
we have the technology that would

60
00:05:22,780 --> 00:05:26,750
actually make this possible much like
credit cards.

61
00:05:26,750 --> 00:05:33,480
Fungibility is another area that Dash has
improved greatly upon the cryptographic

62
00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:40,380
technology. And in Dash from time to time
the history is actually removed from all

63
00:05:40,380 --> 00:05:45,140
of the coins on the network in this
allows every coin to be equal to every

64
00:05:45,140 --> 00:05:46,090
other coin

65
00:05:46,090 --> 00:05:51,980
if you walk into merchant and then you
buy something and you give them $100

66
00:05:51,980 --> 00:05:59,290
bill, that $100 bill is worth exactly $100. Now
if you walk in and you give him a Bitcoin,

67
00:05:59,290 --> 00:06:06,010
that Bitcoin might have come from a recent
illegal activity and then its value might

68
00:06:06,010 --> 00:06:11,080
actually fall over time because no one
wants to be associated with illegal

69
00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:15,630
activities on the network and this is
just something that no one really should

70
00:06:15,630 --> 00:06:20,040
have to worry about using a currency. And
so we believe the fungibility is

71
00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:24,070
something that the currency should take
care of itself without users really

72
00:06:24,070 --> 00:06:29,350
having to get involved. and so we've
invented a system which any user can

73
00:06:29,350 --> 00:06:35,140
utilize it and it's very cost efficient
to remove the history from coins

74
00:06:35,140 --> 00:06:41,479
utilizing this method. It uses something
called DarkSend, and DarkSend utilizes our

75
00:06:41,479 --> 00:06:48,890
2nd Tier infrastructure which will get
into later. DarkSend is 100% secure. And

76
00:06:48,890 --> 00:06:52,990
we've had it audited by security
professionals and improved by the

77
00:06:52,990 --> 00:06:58,729
community itself and no one has ever
traced coins through DarkSend.

78
00:06:58,729 --> 00:07:04,270
It's also completely decentralized and
trustless. Well how about network participation?

79
00:07:04,270 --> 00:07:11,570
This is actually where we first start to
see foundational cracks in the Bitcoin

80
00:07:11,570 --> 00:07:18,190
ecosystem. The infrastructure is actually
donated at the expense of the users and

81
00:07:18,190 --> 00:07:24,020
companies utilizing the systems and as
costs rise it actually squeezes out

82
00:07:24,020 --> 00:07:29,320
those people that are most vulnerable to
the cost of running these services. And it

83
00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:31,160
the weakens the network as a whole.

84
00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:37,320
Well how did Dash fix this? Dash has a
special class of servers

85
00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:43,680
we call our 2nd Tier infrastructure. Our
2nd Tier infrastructure is also known as

86
00:07:43,680 --> 00:07:50,690
the Masternode network and this is a
compensated infrastructure because they

87
00:07:50,690 --> 00:07:54,970
provide services to the networks such as
seeking clients and propagating messages

88
00:07:54,970 --> 00:08:01,960
plus they're paid to do this. Any user
can run a master on our network and

89
00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:07,070
we try to lure in the most talented
people to run these for us. And so, we

90
00:08:07,070 --> 00:08:11,500
have systems administrators and
programmers and other talented people

91
00:08:11,500 --> 00:08:14,920
that are running this part of our
infrastructure for the network itself.

92
00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:22,320
Governance is also another topic that is
rarely discussed within peer-to-peer

93
00:08:22,320 --> 00:08:28,430
networks. And this is because no
peer-to-peer network has ever grown to

94
00:08:28,430 --> 00:08:34,669
the size where it has to deal with
issues like which direction are we going

95
00:08:34,669 --> 00:08:41,000
in? and should we take the opinions of
the community seriously? or how are

96
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:46,420
decisions made if the community's split
here or there with this decision or that

97
00:08:46,420 --> 00:08:52,310
decision? And for something to be
successful, again like a centralized

98
00:08:52,310 --> 00:08:57,780
corporation, you need a clear governance
methodology. And we've implemented this

99
00:08:57,780 --> 00:09:05,380
in a brand new way that has never been
seen before in any type of software. It

100
00:09:05,380 --> 00:09:11,470
decentralizes our decision-making process
among thousands of people. In Bitcoin,

101
00:09:11,470 --> 00:09:16,080
there has never been a clear way to
decide anything for the project and this

102
00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:20,920
has led to all sorts of problems within
their ecosystem. What about funding?

103
00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:26,650
Funding is something that is often
overlooked for decentralized projects.

104
00:09:26,650 --> 00:09:33,210
And most decentralized projects actually
operate at the expense of the people who

105
00:09:33,210 --> 00:09:38,890
created them and this can only happen
for so long before people get tired of

106
00:09:38,890 --> 00:09:46,270
paying for things. And so we've created a
decentralized revenue source for dash so

107
00:09:46,270 --> 00:09:48,290
they can pay for things like

108
00:09:48,290 --> 00:09:54,019
salaries of its employees it can pay for
website design website building hiring

109
00:09:54,019 --> 00:09:59,070
contractors to do all sorts of things
for us running marketing campaigns for

110
00:09:59,070 --> 00:10:03,579
public awareness and even paying for
legal expenses.

111
00:10:03,579 --> 00:10:09,990
It's a very robust funding source for us
and it will allow us to try to grow the

112
00:10:09,990 --> 00:10:14,639
funding source into something more
substantial for the future and having

113
00:10:14,639 --> 00:10:19,819
something that is self-sustaining and
completely decentralized is very

114
00:10:19,819 --> 00:10:25,589
important to the Dash project success
long-term. So that was it for the

115
00:10:25,589 --> 00:10:30,709
introduction to Dash. In the next video
will be going over our Virtual

116
00:10:30,709 --> 00:10:34,589
Corporation and how that functions. See
you there.