{"id":14954,"date":"2018-01-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2019.dash.org\/2018\/01\/19\/arizona-state-university-partners-with-dash-to-fund-research-scholarships\/"},"modified":"2021-09-18T11:38:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-18T11:38:28","slug":"asu-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.dash.org\/news\/asu-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona State University Partners With Dash to Fund Research, Scholarships"},"content":{"rendered":"
Arizona State University (ASU) has announced a partnership with the digital currency Dash that will provide $350,000 to \u201caccelerate research, development, and education in ways that advance blockchain transaction speed, efficiency, security, and expand its uses.\u201d The funds will be allocated as follows:<\/p>\n
The $350,000 is funded by Dash, via a successful treasury proposal. Director of ASU\u2019s Blockchain Research Lab, Dragan Boscovic, commented:<\/p>\n
\u201cASU welcomes this initiative and is ready to play its role in creating a potent Blockchain research and innovation environment for young talents to develop practical Blockchain applications.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Fusion of research and development<\/h2>\n
When thinking about digital currencies, there\u2019s a tendency for the community to focus on the development side of the equation. New versions of the software, updates to add new features, roadmaps and the like \u2013 these usually get far more attention than research. However, the new features that get everybody so excited are made possible by researchers who discover the means and methods to add them.<\/p>\n
While Dash\u2019s Core DAO (distributed autonomous organization) is focused on development, marketing and the day-to-day aspects of maintaining a digital currency, there are at least two research groups working to move the project forward. Dash Labs is a DAO founded by Dash founder Evan Duffield, based in Hong Kong, that is working to develop hardware solutions to enable on-chain scaling using massive blocks.<\/p>\n
Likewise, researchers at ASU are working on researching ways to improve Dash and solve the problems of cryptocurrency in general. Last summer,\u00a0Dash funded ASU\u2019s Blockchain Research Lab<\/a>\u00a0with a $50,000 donation. Dash Core Team CEO Ryan Taylor\u00a0wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\u201cInitial research [will] focus on throughput capacity and latency performance of blockchain technology, model and assess it for different network architectures (including Dash\u2019s multi-tiered architecture), applications, and use cases to propose a \u201cscalability\u201d deployment guide and best practices.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Taylor notes<\/a>\u00a0that the partnership is exclusive:<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil now, the majority of Blockchain research has been focused on Bitcoin, with minimal focus on other Blockchain applications\u2026The sponsorship incorporate[s] Dash as the exclusive digital currency for ongoing academic research.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bitcoin and MIT<\/h2>\n
Dash isn\u2019t the only digital currency project to partner with a major university. In the summer of 2015,\u00a0MIT launched the Digital Currency Initiative<\/a>\u00a0and solicited donations which were used to hire three full-time Bitcoin developers. This move followed the effective collapse of the Bitcoin Foundation, which had been providing much of the funding for development. None of the funds actually come from MIT, rather, they come from outside donors and are funneled through the Digital Currency Initiative.<\/p>\n
By May 2016, MIT\u00a0had raised $900,000<\/a>\u00a0to fund these developers\u2019 salaries. Later that year, this number\u00a0had risen to $2 million<\/a>. This funding is crucial,\u00a0as Nasdaq points out<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\u201cFunding Bitcoin development seems to have always been problematic.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While some developers are willing and able to work full-time on open source projects like Bitcoin without compensation, most are not. Therefore, funding is desperately needed to maintain and advance the project.<\/p>\n
A different method of funding<\/h2>\n
While MIT has serious fundraising muscle, dependence on the altruism of others is always a shaky proposition. While most digital currency projects rely on donations or an initial endowment (via ICO) to fund development, Dash has chosen a different method. Dash self-funds its development team, paying developer salaries out of a portion of the block rewards.<\/p>\n
Each month, 10% of the block rewards are reserved for successful treasury proposals. This means that as much as 6,650 DASH, worth $5.8 mln at press time, can be paid out directly by the network to those who manage to get their treasury proposals passed. Dash\u2019s treasury system pays for marketing efforts, business development and integrations, conference sponsorships and more.<\/p>\n