Dash outreach in Nigeria has reached several key events over a short period of time, creating over 800 new Dash users.

The Dash Squard group has held a series of promotional events across Nigeria. The latest of which has been the Dash Music and Cultural Festival, a two-day event with about 800 attendees geared towards promoting the use of Dash as a currency, including to purchase event tickets.

According to organizer Ogunseye Oluwajuwon Micheal, the event created hundreds of new Dash users, including dozens of merchants, and showcased a complete Dash ecosystem.

“We also had the Dash Music Festival which had over 800 people who came for it. It was a two day event. The first day had more than 350 people the second Day had 500 people. We opened a total of 300 new Dash wallets and also sent all of them Dash worth about $5, which everyone used in buying food, drinks and wares at the event. We also trained over 50 vendors that came for our event on the benefits of Dash and how they can send and buy Dash. We introduced Dash to the local artists that came for the events, and all of them where paid in Dash. Just two decided to sell some part of their Dash.”

A consistent campaign of meetups and outreach events

A key element to promoting Dash at events and meetups is to create as many new Dash users as possible, rather than simply spreading knowledge. To achieve this, a common and effective move is to set up new users with a Dash mobile wallet with a small amount of Dash. This both provides a financial stake in learning more about the project, and provides a real-world, rather than purely theoretical, experience in using Dash as an everyday digital cash. Dash Squard has created hundreds of new Dash wallets around the country, reportedly over 800 total at time of writing.

Micheal sees next year as pivotal in the growth of the Dash community in Nigeria, and will be bolstered by a series of merchant integrations:

“Well I know Dash in 2018 will be a major revolution to a lot of Nigerians. We will have more people using Dash as presently one of the first and biggest e-commerce site: ShopNow.ng will be accepting Dash after we spoke to him, and we intend slashing 15% discount for anyone who buy any products with Dash at the site. A press release will be out soon. Many Nigerians can’t just wait for 2018 as we are planning to have DashCart which will be like BitCart but this time this will be a Dash only gift cart exchange. People will be able to use their Dash to buy electronic top ups, pay for their bills, buy food stuffs and also pay for medical bills.”

According to Micheal, Dash is growing enough in Nigeria for several to be able to live off of entirely, something that is no longer possible with Bitcoin due to extremely high fees:

“Dash Nigeria have been able to convince three major merchants in Nigeria to accept Dash at their physical shops and with that more than ten of us are already living on only Dash. I believe by the time we raise up our proposal and MN votes for us, we will have awesome utility and that will boost the Dash ecosystem in Nigeria. I believe in the future of Dash in my county and Nigerians are so eager to have a stable system and drop the weak fiat and centralized systems with them. Also Bitcoin has left Us entirely. We cannot afford to be paying as large as $20 to buy a good on ShopNow.ng for less than $15, that is outrageous. Dash is the only solution we have.”

An ambitious plan for building out a complete Dash ecosystem in Nigeria in 2018

Finally, Micheal is planning a series of infrastructural projects for the new year, including a Dash-only exchange, a free educational course for professionals, and a physical Dash office for the more wary or unfamiliar to come speak in person and learn about Dash:

“Well, my next target is to create a system in Nigeria that will allow all Nigerians to be able to live on Dash alone. We intend to create a Dash only exchange, and also our DashCart. I have met a lot of professionals in Nigeria both from our tech savvy guys and our bloggers, reporters and marketers who don’t know about Dash. We intend to build a Dash Academic in Nigeria where we offer free crash course for most professionals to come learn about Dash and it usage. We also intend to have a very good physical office in Lagos Nigeria; most alternative currency in Nigeria have their offices in Lagos and most are not as close to Dash, so most people keep asking us why we do not have any physical offices as Nigerians are still very new to cryptocurrency and will love to come visit the office.”