Dash has been expanding rapidly throughout many countries in Africa, in part thanks to Nathaniel Luz, DASH African Ambassador and Project Leader of Dashy Africa, along with his team.
Countries throughout Africa are suffering from high inflation due to poor governmental policies. A significant portion of Sub-Saharan Africans, to the tune of over 60% of the population, remain unbanked. The immediate difficulties prevent Africans from safely and securely storing their personal wealth, while the long-term effects make it difficult for entrepreneurs to get access to funds. Micro-financing emerged in the last decade as a potential solution, but has had limited results. Dash has been growing on the ground to try to help Africans where other initiatives have had lackluster results.
Dash Force News talked with Nathaniel Luz to learn more about how Dash is developing in Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Ghana, and Uganda, where they operate. They work via “outreaches, media appearances, giveaways, website and social media reach”, which they have found to be the most effective.
“Our goal is to make Dash the most used cryptocurrency is Africa”
Dash is helping individuals pay for their everyday items in a reliable way
Nathaniel said that “Africa has lots of monetary issues that cryptocurrency can solve ranging from inflation, to international trade and remittance” and that many are already “moving their savings to cryptocurrency”. An aspect that has made cryptocurrency so popular is that “[c]ryptocurrency has restored their purchasing power in international trade” illustrated by the fact that it’s now “easier and cheaper to buy from Amazon and pay with DASH than to pay with your bank card” in many African nations.
He highlighted that the “[m]ost popular items are airtime, patronage of online shops, then offline businesses who accept DASH” along with “cell phone refills, which are popular because of the 10% discount and speed and convenience are added advantages” with Bitrefill. Luz shared with Dash Force News a report from Bitrefill that showed, within the past 30 days, they had 219 mobile refill orders from Nigeria and 54 orders from Sierra-Leone, which were the top two locations that ordered mobile refill via Dash. Cameroon was tied with India as the third most popular location for mobile refills paid with Dash at 23 orders. Luz said he always directs individuals to Bitrefill when they ask how they can spend their Dash since purchasing mobile airtime “offers a very common domestic product”. Nathaniel advocates for Dash in Africa because of the advantages it brings.
“Favourite part of DASH is the ability to send and receive money globally, at the fastest, cheapest, private, convenient, and without restriction.”
Dash is providing tools
As Luz mentioned, Dash provides extraordinarily low transaction fees and fast confirmation times, which is incredibly important for areas that lack banking access, but still need access to online items. Dash makes it relatively easy for anyone to start using Dash. This is exemplified by the support teams in Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Ghana, and Uganda where Nathaniel and his team operates along with the teams and support desk in Venezuela, and other teams around the world. Dash is also able to sponsor projects for individuals that may not have access to other funds such as the Dash Leopards or individuals in the area suffering from inflation.
The ability of Dash to leverage its unique governance and treasury system in a decentralized collaboration with its community allows Dash to provide tools that help individuals accomplish their own goals by overcoming the crummy economic situation their government has caused.
