Leading cryptocurrency Dash has rolled out a new upgrade that reduces its transaction fees to near zero, while doubling its network capacity.

The network upgrade – version 12.2 – will cut costs by a factor of ten. Regular Dash transactions will now cost less than a cent, and the InstantSend transactions, which confirm online or at the Point Of Sale in less than two seconds, will be reduced to a remarkably low 2.8 cents each (0.0001 x Current Dash Price). InstantSend transactions historically cost 0.001 Dash or 28 cents. In contrast, bitcoin carries transactions costs of about $6 USD per.

“As a payments-focused network, we strongly believe that maintaining low transaction fees is a prerequisite to developing a healthy network over the long term,” Dash Core CEO Ryan Taylor said. “12.2 reinforces the Dash Core Group’s commitment to maintaining a network that is fast, high-capacity, secure, inexpensive, and easy to integrate and use. Most importantly, with this release Dash is demonstrating our roadmap to scale digital currency is actively working, while keeping costs low for our users. Dash is silently becoming the network Bitcoin once promised to be.”

Dash said that the fee reduction will be a significant boon for business owners and merchant networks considering adopting Dash as a payment option; they will only absorb a couple of cents per purchase, rather than the 3% haircut they take on credit card and debit card transactions.

In addition, the new upgrade will also increase the network’s maximum block size from 1Mb to 2Mb, allowing for about 48 transactions to confirm every second, compared to Bitcoin’s 7. The increase is possible because Dash’s network propagates blocks 100% faster than Bitcoin, and incorporates numerous performance improvements and security enhancements needed to safely enable larger blocks.

“Scaling solutions take time to develop, test, and deploy. In the digital currency space, transaction volumes can grow quickly, so we believe it is critical to stay well ahead of anticipated demand. We are actively exploring a number of use cases with partners that would consume a high volume of transactions, so it is important to demonstrate to the market our commitment to scaling our network to meet their needs. Beyond our own network’s growth, there is a real possibility that Bitcoin’s own exponential growth could spill over into other networks. If this were to occur, our network could experience a sudden and dramatic increase in demand. For these reasons, it is prudent to continue adding capacity ahead of the need, rather than reacting to a problem after it occurs,” Taylor said.