Evan Duffield made his name after creating one of the biggest cryptocurrencies in the world.
But who exactly is Evan Duffield and what is the DASH cryptocurrency?
Who is Evan Duffield?
Evan Duffield is a crypto developer and the creator of DASH.
Born in Arizona, USA in 1980, he first became interested in digital when he started coding at the age of 15 while still in school. By 20 he had a career working for big tech companies such as Wells Fargo, Verizon Wireless, and Warped AI.
In 2010, he became eager to learn more about finance and in particular fintech. He started studying to become a licensed investment advisor.
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While studying he learnt about Bitcoin. He read the white paper for the original crypto token and was intrigued by its potential.
He once said in an interview: “When I discovered cryptographic currency, it combined all of my interests together in a really neat way.
“It’s economics because you have to really understand how the money moves around thee types of eco-systems because they’re all self contained and it’s different from anything else you could get into.
“And then besides that, it is finance because it is money and it takes some serious programming skills and so it’s probably the most complicated programming you can do.
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“So it’s really intellectually challenging and it was just neat. And when I first saw it I just instantly fell in love with it and wanted to find out more about it.”
However, he believed Bitcoin suffered from a number of issues that risked holding back its potential.
“I thought I’d try my hand at figuring out some solutions to these fundamental issues to make a better currency,” he said.
It was from that desire to improve Bitcoin that Evan Duffield created DASH.
What is DASH cryptocurrency?
DASH – a contraction of Digital Cash – was launched by Evan Duffield on January 18, 2014. It is one of the world’s top 10 cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap.
Originally called XCoin, it aimed to be a quick, inexpensive, and reliable payment method. DASH uses 11 different tasing algorithms in order to increase security when transfers are made.
However, the coin’s initial configuration included a bug that allowed two million coins to be mined in just a few days.
“At the beginning I was working a full time job and it was just a hobby I was doing at nights and weekends,” Duffield said.
“It was consuming all of my spare time.
“I just didn’t have enough time to review the source and I messed all sorts of things up in the benign and it was more or less a disaster.”
After fixing the bug, Duffield rebranded the token as Darkcoin before settling on the current name 15 months later.
Looking to bring cryptocurrency into the mainstream, in July 2017 Duffield launched the DashDirect app which allows users to make purchases in more than 155,000 stores and 125 websites.
Evan Duffield was the CEO of the Dash Core Group which focused on the development of the cryptocurrency. It is separate from the DAO (autonomous decentralised organisation) which is responsible for DASH’s governance.
Why did Evan Duffield quit as DASH CEO?
Evan Duffield stepped down as CEO of the Dash Core Group at the start of 2017. He chose to leave his position in order to focus less on the day-to-day running of the coin according to a press release from the organisation.
He said that he would instead be focusing on a new branch of the organisation called Dash Labs, which uses open-source hardware in order to find a long-term solution for the scaling of the network.
Duffield said at the time: “Dash Labs aims to create the first open-source versions of many different types of hardware.
“Our goal is to help the digital currency space to remain open and transparent, while reducing the economic advantages of closed-source proprietary technology.”
He moved to Hong Kong to head up the new office from there.
What is Evan Duffield’s net worth?
Evan Duffield’s net worth is unknown with no clear indication of exactly how wealthy he is. However, some reports suggest his net worth is equal to approximately three percent of the total DASH coins.
With a current market cap of DASH being $444million, that would mean Evan Duffield has a net worth of approximately $13million.
