Happy to hear that Genesis Mining is rolling out XMR mining contracts. I just got an email from them. It just proved the acceptance that Monero is getting. Obviously the price hike is due to the demand and we can't rule out a correction coming in. MAybe, it may keep gaining. But XMR seems like a good candidate to diversify your crypto portfolio into.
Is there a major difference between DASH and MONERO?
The anonymity created by the Monero is in the protocol, it does not require the mast nodes like the Dash does.