Dash has funded a development and adoption roadmap for contactless payment system Festy.

Festy is a point-of-sale and payments provider using Dash. It leverages contactless wristbands and cards with Dash balances to improve retail payments, in particular festivals which have traditionally had issues from theft or inconvenience from traditional payment methods. Beyond festivals, however, Festy hopes to integrate into a wide network of Irish pubs, as well as many other potential target markets:

“Dash has the capability of revolutionising day to day business as we know it and we are committed to developing technologies and businesses that help in achieving this goal. We want to make it possible for the Dash community and the wider population to live 100% in Dash, making payments in all aspects of their day to day life, from retail and festivals to transit and tourism, using Festy as the payment processor.”

Festy previously debuted a successful prototype model, and along with Dash was a prime sponsor of the Irish Pubs Global Awards, which allowed the creation of the business relationships leveraged for the 2018 expansion.

Moving past a previous hiccup

The funding of the Festy proposal indicates a recovery from a snag the project faced earlier. Confusion surrounding contractual agreements with Dash Core’s business development department resulted in service delays for BitCart, the online gift card platform managed by some of the same team members as Festy. During this period, concerns regarding the BitCart situation caused a joint Festy/BitCart proposal to not pass. Since then, a joint statement by BitCart and Dash Core, as well as an update on Core business development practices, have significantly cleared the air.

Now, the team has informed the community that BitCart has worked with Dash Core to commit to a three-month developmental roadmap, which will lead to full automation of the service, clearing up any remaining problems, and potentially setting to rest fears that BitCart-related issues could once again cause disruptions to Festy. The proposal passed with a decent margin (933 Yes / 288 No / 15 Abstain), indicating that, provided the project delivers as advertised, major problems are in the past.

Dash is poised for wide retail integration in 2018

The next year may prove very fruitful for Dash adoption into the global retail sector. In addition to Festy spreading to wide markets around the world, payment processor Alt Thirty Six has officially partnered with Dash, promising a comprehensive business solution initially targeted at the US legal cannabis industry, but afterwards the global retail market as well. Finally, an ongoing integration into the Ukrainian retail sector has formed partnerships with major point-of-sale solutions in the region, which has led to a marked increase in Dash adoption in the region.

This ambitious initiative for global use as a payments system has not gone unnoticed by investors, and Dash has recently performed very well in the markets as of late, reaching an all-time high of $814 and passing a $6 billion market cap this week.