Cryptobuyer has dropped Bitcoin support across all its offerings, instead focusing on Dash and Litecoin.

The Latin American exchange and merchant platform announced over the weekend that it would cease support for Bitcoin on the first of February, and will continue to support its two other offerings, Dash and Litecoin. According to the press release, this was because of increasingly high fees to use the network:

“Unfortunately in recent months Bitcoin has suffered a serious scalability problem as the number of operations worldwide multiplies, making the network less efficient, slower and therefore more expensive to transact. It is precisely in countries like Venezuela, where the minimum salary of a person is equivalent to 3 USD, where this problem becomes more evident, sending a transaction of 1 USD in Bitcoin can cost 30 USD in commissions, this makes any type of operation unviable.”

The release also indicated a dissatisfaction with previously-proposed scaling solutions such as Segwit, indicating that Cryptobuyer would not be re-adding Bitcoin until the network once again allowed it to be used as digital cash:

“This action will be maintained until the Bitcoin network shows maturity and stability on its operations, as well as cheaper transactions fees, we do not believe in half solutions and we continue betting on the initial guidelines and definitions of Satoshi Nakamoto: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”

In addition to its exchange, Cryptobuyer will also be removing Bitcoin functionality from its ATM network, as well as it’s point-of-sale solution, which is responsible for dozens of merchants accepting cryptocurrencies across Latin America.

Dissatisfaction over Bitcoin’s changed purpose and vision

While the removal of Bitcoin support has an element of practicality to it, according to Cryptobuyer there was an attraction to certain former characteristics, some of which no longer apply:

“At Cryptobuyer, we are true believers in the potential of Bitcoin from the first time we met it. All members of the organization had their first experiences with this technology in different ways, approaches, and needs. From a simple curiosity to know how to mine, to a medical emergency where it was required to pay for a medicine abroad. Although all the motivations were different, the characteristics that attracted all of them were the same: freedom, ease, and cost.”

Of those attributes, Dash maintains all three, and the upcoming Evolution platform aims to vastly improve ease of use. Conveniently, Cryptobuyer maintains support for two remaining cryptocurrencies, Dash being one of them:

“As a counterpart we are very happy with the integration of two new digital currencies: Litecoin and Dash”

Last April, Cryptobuyer added Dash functionality to its platform, most notably allowing Venezuelans an avenue to purchase Dash. Since then, thanks to a dedicated team of promoters, 38 Dash-accepting businesses are currently listed on DiscoverDash, over 5% of all global listings.

Dash’s January adoption sprint

While Bitcoin’s acceptance among certain merchant sectors has reversed recently, Dash has had a busy start of the year with a host of new integrations. The Mercury Cash platform added Dash-buying functionality for both bank transfer and credit card, opening up a host of new fiat currency buying options to complement last year’s Uphold integration. Bitnovo has added Dash-buying functionality via bank transfer and credit card on its exchange, as well as thousands of in-person locations, and BitINKA and Bitcoin.vn have both also added Dash to their exchanges. As announced at the North American Bitcoin Conference, Strike Social, GoCoin, and Piiko have all added Dash, opening up significant merchant use cases. Finally, Dash has given a $350,000 grant to blockchain research programs at Arizona State University, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has indicated it will implement Dash first in a trial run of buying and selling electricity with cryptocurrency using smart meters.