Masternodes that don't provide service, get marks, and after 6, they drop off from being paid until the issue is corrected. For example, ports not being open, blockchain stuck/hung, old versions, etc.

appearently people who dont mind not getting paid

When will we leverage the PoSe system to move from PoW to 100% PoService? Is there a technical reason why this wouldn't be possible/desirable?

Proof of Work is wasteful and dangerous (do you really believe a dedicated hacker couldn't hack a couple of the biggest pools and use them to launch an attack?). It seems like the ideal solution would be to get rid of mining altogether, and have masternodes create and publish blocks rather than miners.

The masternode network would have to be absolutely bullet proof. At the moment if the masternode network goes down for whatever reason transactions are still processed with POW. The coin continues. There have been masternode network outages in the past. The dual system works. And many believe pow works because it is inefficient. And distribution via people mining with video cards is fantastic. Be it mega rigs or just gaming machines it encourages getting into crypto without the exchange crap.

I agree, mining is a great way to get into crypto. It's how I got involved myself. However, the current system of pools is *dangerous.* I'm very scared that nobody is going to listen until an attack happens.

Unless something has changed in the last six months (since I stopped mining), Dash is extremely unprofitable to mine. The cost of electricity is greater than the value of the coins received. When you consider depreciation of the hardware, the picture becomes even more bleak. I don't like the idea of entrusting the security of our blockchain to altruists who are willing to lose money in order to secure the network.

(Again, I haven't mined Dash in quite awhile, so forgive me if this is no longer accurate.)

That is very cool!  I'll give it a try

Thank you! So $3.15 USD/Day at a cost of 0.9 KW * 24 hr * $0.10/KWH = $2.16 USD/Day cost. So theoretically slightly profitable if a) your rig has already paid for itself, b) you are using it to heat your home...add 20% to the cost to cover cooling otherwise, c) you have relatively inexpensive electricity...Europeans need not apply.

Sorry if this has been answered before but I've gone over the guides and how to start multiple MN's from a single wallet but it doesn't specifically say if you can run multiple MNs from a single machine?   Do I need 5 pi's to run 5 MNs?     I understand I can use Amazon or another VPS provider but same question,  do I run 5 independent instances?      There are other services out there that allow for one setup the MN for you at a very reasonable price but I'm looking to do it myself the same way I got into mining...   was painful at the beginning but in the end I felt it was worth it.

...and if I have to run 5 PIs,  can they all be run from the same location?  

Thnx for the help,  the process of setting up a single MN looks pretty straight forward and one of my friends just got his going.  Just looking to understand what is the cheapest solution to get 5 going.

It's mainly because of the recent update... the count always goes down until people find the time to do the update AND those Masternodes are listed again.

Look at this graph and guess when the last 3 updates happened: