# Blockchain architecture We have chosen to base our cryptocurrency ecosystem on the Dash source code. In our opinion it is a very mature blockchain technology and had been created by one of the most talented teams of developers in the crypto space. Dash offers a perfect balance of security and stability. Most importantly, it has a set of features that matches our requirements and it is ideal for what our project has set out to achieve. Dash’s decentralised governance model rests on the existence of masternodes, which help secure the chain and enable the functioning of the entire governance model. Adopting Dash for a new project has one key consideration though and that is hashrate stability. All dash forks are plagued by unstable hashrate that is caused by auto-switching mining pools. This has the effect of very unstable block frequencies of such chains. After large amounts of hashrate leaves the network with high block difficulty, the chain can be left without a new block for hours. We had decided to tackle this issue by implementing merged mining which allows miners to mine Osmium together with any other X11 coin. This shall give the Osmium network a large amount of stable hashrate and eliminate the risk of "difficulty bombs". --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://whitepaper.osmium.space/blockchain-architecture.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.