Dash (DASH): masternodes, X11 and mining

Dash (DASH) is a payment cryptocurrency from 2014 whose network rests on two pillars: miners with ASIC miners on the X11 algorithm, and masternodes, which provide instant payments and budget voting. A block is created roughly every 2.6 minutes. Today the miner receives approximately 0.41 DASH of it; most of the reward goes to masternodes and the network budget (as of 18 October 2026, WhatToMine). The only current X11 miner in our range, the Antminer D9, mines about 0.11 DASH a day.

Summary

• Dash was created in January 2014 as Xcoin, was then called Darkcoin, and since 2015 has been Dash (“digital cash”).
• Of the block reward, 20% goes to the network budget and 80% is split between miners and masternodes. Today the miner receives roughly a quarter of those 80%.
• The block reward decreases roughly once a year by 1/14 (7.14%). Dash has no four-yearly halving.
• The Antminer D9 (1,770 GH/s, 2,832 W) earns around CZK 118 gross a day today. Profit depends heavily on the electricity price.

What Dash is and what masternodes are for

Dash is based on Bitcoin's code, but from the start it aimed at fast and cheap payments. Besides ordinary miners, it has a second network layer – masternodes. These are servers whose operator must hold 1,000 DASH as collateral. The collateral stays in their wallet, but as soon as they spend it, the masternode stops working and receiving rewards.

Masternodes provide services that miners cannot:

• InstantSend: payment confirmation within a few seconds, without waiting for a block.
• ChainLocks: blocks are locked by groups of masternodes. This protects the network from history being rewritten, even if someone gained the majority of mining power.
• CoinJoin: optional mixing of coins for greater payment privacy.
• Voting: masternodes approve what the network budget is used for (development, marketing, integrations).

Alongside them there are also Evonodes with 4,000 DASH collateral. In addition to the services of ordinary masternodes, they also run Dash Platform – a layer for applications and usernames.

How Dash is mined

X11 chains eleven different hash functions. It was originally meant to resist specialised chips, but X11 ASIC miners have existed since 2016. Today Dash is mined exclusively on them.

How the block reward is split

According to the Dash documentation, 20% of each reward goes to the budget, which is paid out once a month in a so-called superblock. The remaining 80% is shared between the miner and the masternodes. Of the masternode portion, 62.5% goes directly to ordinary masternodes and 37.5% to the Dash Platform credit pool, from which Evonodes are paid.

That is why it is wise not to rely on calculators that count with the whole block reward. Only the miner's share applies to the miner. Mining and running a masternode at the same time is of course possible – but each requires a different investment: a machine for mining, and for a masternode 1,000 DASH collateral (roughly USD 49,000 at the rate as of 18 October 2026) and a server.

How much an Antminer D9 earns today

We do not have live data for Dash, so we give the calculation as of 18 October 2026 according to WhatToMine. The Antminer D9 with 1,770 GH/s mines about 0.111 DASH a day, i.e. roughly USD 5.5, or around CZK 118. It uses 68 kWh of electricity a day.

The calculation is without the pool fee and at an exchange rate of USD 1 ≈ CZK 21.65. It is clear that Dash is on the edge today: it only pays off with really cheap electricity, and a small drop in the price pushes it into a loss. Current location prices can be found on the ASIC miner hosting page.

Antminer D9: specifications

At 75 dB, the D9 belongs in a workshop, a plant room or hosting, not in a flat. One D9 accounts for roughly 0.045% of the entire Dash network hashrate. You will find the machine in the Dash miners collection.

Pools and wallets

The Dash documentation lists pools such as AntPool, F2Pool and ViaBTC (with the caveat that the developers do not vet them). Choose a pool by its fee, minimum payout and payout method.

For payouts, the official Dash Core wallet or another wallet supporting Dash is enough. Dash addresses start with the letter X.

Risks of mining Dash

• Thin margin: at today's price, the D9 comes out in profit only at an electricity price of up to roughly CZK 1.7/kWh.
• Declining reward: every year, 7.14% fewer new coins are issued. Without a rising price, earnings gradually fall.
• Most of the reward goes elsewhere: the miner has only a minority share of each block. Any further shifts in favour of masternodes or the Platform would cut earnings further.
• No live data: the figures in this article apply as of 18 October 2026. Recalculate the earnings before buying.

What next

• Dash miners – Antminer D9 with the option of running it in hosting.
• ASIC miner profitability – comparison with coins for which we have live data (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Zcash and others).
• Zcash (ZEC) – another coin with similarly large ASICs, today with a significantly higher margin.

Sources

• Dash documentation: mining (X11, reward split, ASICs, pools)
• Dash documentation: masternodes and Evonodes
• WhatToMine: Dash (X11) – reward, difficulty, D9 earnings