Dash is an open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency with a strong focus on the payments industry. Dash offers a form of money that is portable, inexpensive, divisible and fast. It can be spent securely both online and in person with only minimal transaction fees. Based on the Bitcoin project, Dash aims to be the most user-friendly and scalable payments system in the world. In addition to Bitcoin's feature set, Dash currently also offers instant transactions (:ref:`instantsend`), private transactions (:ref:`privatesend`) and operates a self-governing and self-funding model that enables the Dash network to pay individuals and businesses for work that adds value to the network. This :ref:`decentralized governance and budgeting system <governance>` makes it one of the first ever successful decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).
If you are new to cryptocurrencies, the most important change to understand is that transactions occur directly between two parties without any central authority to facilitate the transaction. This also means that you are responsible for your own security - there is no bank or credit card company to reverse a transaction if your funds are stolen or lost. In this sense, it is similar to cash or gold, but cryptocurrency can be spent locally and internationally with equal ease, if you are confident you are sending funds to the right destination. For these reasons, the Dash documentation has a strong focus on safety and understanding the concepts and features that drive the Dash ecosystem. The videos, links and documentation below can help you get started, or use the table of contents on the left to find a specific topic of interest.
.. toctree:: :maxdepth: 3 :hidden: :includehidden: :caption: First Steps introduction/about introduction/features introduction/how-to-buy introduction/safety introduction/information
.. toctree:: :maxdepth: 3 :hidden: :includehidden: :caption: Users wallets/index earning-spending
.. toctree:: :maxdepth: 3 :hidden: :includehidden: :caption: Merchants merchants/getting-started merchants/administrative merchants/technical
.. toctree:: :maxdepth: 3 :hidden: :caption: Network governance/index.rst masternodes/index mining/index developers/index marketing.rst legal.rst