RocketPay, which was a DAO funded proposal to spread Dash in Southeast Asia by being a payment processor, point-of-sales solution, and exchange for merchants and consumers has changed their name to SlithEx.

Dash Force News caught up with SithEx, since last speaking with them a few months ago, about their name change and progress of integrating Dash into Southeast Asia. SlithEx said that their rebranding was necessary since they had a domain name conflict with RocketGate, but “changes only applied to [their] domain and product’s name” while other systems remained the same.

Their focus is still consistent with their original proposal to be a Dash payment processor, Dash point-of-sales system, and Dash exchange in addition to spreading awareness of Dash through many channels. They are currently heavily involved in increasing the volume of Dash users and public awareness and have seen “more than 10,000 consumers visit[s] per month” to their website and significant merchant adoption.

“Most of our merchants are from small medium enterprise (SMEs) business[es], and estimate [that] we have more than 500 registered merchants right now. And we have planned to promote our merchant’s program to other big players’ business[es] so that they could apply [it] in their business[es].”

Successes and difficulties of spreading Dash in Southeast Asia

Increasing Dash adoption in Southeast Asia, and Malaysia specifically, has had its fair share of successes and difficulties. SlithEx shares that many of their programs have been a success due to the great services that they provide.

“We would love to share our most successful program which is Dash Exchanger and followed by Dash POS system, and Dash Payment Gateway and Processor. This is [because] the systems that we created simplifies the clients’ activities [on] whether to buy or sell Dash directly with our local currency, pay using Dash and even a better system for the vendors to accept Dash and control their quality and quantity”

However, their difficulties have arisen from the fact that Bitcoin and Ethereum own the cryptocurrency brand name in Asia and there are a good amount of scams that take place, which has led to skeptical consumers.

“[T]he hardest part for us [is] to create awareness and to convince [the] public among [the] South East Asia region. This is because cryptocurrency is most likely well known because of Bitcoin and Ethereum, even though Dash is slightly different”.

But SlithEx has, nevertheless, been continuously educating the public to teach them how Dash is different and better than other cryptocurrencies.

“For almost 7 months we [have] operated, and we have held a few events about SlithEx and Dash and most of [the attendees] were not [previously] aware about the existence of Dash in [Southeast Asia].

SlithEx expanded on how “in Malaysia specifically, there [is] a lot of fraud, Ponzi, and scam activities that [are] highly related with Cryptocurrency.” However, the SlithEx team remains motivated as they “still continue [their] effort to spread awareness to the public” and have various initiatives planned “for the future to make sure that Dash is spread all over the South East Asia [region]”.

The SlithEx team also has to deal with governments, which are always a potential risk. The Malaysian government does not currently regulate cryptocurrencies, but they did release a “policy paper” related to cryptocurrencies. As a precaution, the team “registered SlithEx with [the] Malaysian Central Bank as one of the bodies that operate Digital Currency or Cryptocurrency in Malaysia”.

SlithEx reiterated how they “help individuals in Asia, especially Malaysia, to exchange their Dash to MYR instantly” and “increase the volume of users” in Southeast Asia, but also “act as Dash Support Centre” by giving consumers “a clear explanation regarding Dash and cryptocurrencies.” They plan to continue their strategies of conference participation, FinTech events, and are even planing a monthly road tour across each Asian country.

Dash enables decentralized education and outreach

The Dash DAO and treasury system allows for funding of independent projects that aim to educate the public on how to use Dash and how Dash can solve their problems. This decentralized method of outreach leverages the advantages of iterative entrepreneurship since it allows each team to utilize their own unique perspective, knowledge, and connections to make their project a success in their area. Then since these projects can seek funding from the Dash network, it allows them more runway and incentive to produce a better product. The Dash community has recently made this process even better by initiating escrow services and Dash Watch to ensure projects are held to their original goals. Overall, these attributes have allowed Dash to see wider global adoption by many individuals and communities that would not have otherwise been exposed to Dash.