Dash trade volumes soar 282% in 2020 as commercial adoption grows

Dash, a cryptocurrency analog for electronic cash, recorded impressive growth in 2020 as average daily trade volumes, users and retail payments grew considerably. 

During its fourth-quarter livestream on Thursday, Dash Core Group reported that average trade volumes jumped 282% year-over-year, from $9.8 million to $37.4 million. On a quarterly basis, average trade volumes increased by 48%.

The total volume of payments hit $916 million, up 80% from the previous year. Commercial payment values rose 37.3% year-over-year, exceeding 22,000 transactions per day, which is reportedly higher than Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

The quarterly report indicated that DASH is currently accepted as a payment method at thousands of stores, which is a reflection of growing mainstream adoption. “In January, Dash outperformed Bitcoin in terms of the number of brick-and-mortar retailers accepting digital payments in the United States,” Dash Core Group said.

Merchant adoption got a boost in January after Dash partnered with CrayPay, a U.S. loyalty program, to enable Dash spending at major retailers, including American Eagle, CVS, Domino’s Door Dash and Gap, among others.

Dash’s quarterly results follow a rare exchange delisting in January over the cryptocurrency’s alleged privacy features. Dash was grouped alongside Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) as a privacy coin that would no longer be tradable on Bittrex, the United States-based digital currency exchange.

Dash pushed back against the “privacy coin” label, arguing that from a technical standpoint, the cryptocurrency’s “privacy functionality is no greater than Bitcoin’s.”

From a technical standpoint, Dash’s privacy functionality is no greater than Bitcoin’s, making the label of “privacy coin” a misnomer for Dash. We have reached out to @BittrexExchange to request a meeting with their compliance team. Hopefully this will be rectified soon. https://t.co/QA66OoshPn

Dash is currently the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with a total value of just over $1.1 billion.