Paycent, the financial payment platform based out of Singapore, has released a development news update, which includes their ongoing partnership with Dash to allow seamless Dash-to-fiat exchange to allow purchases at countless merchant locations.
Paycent first integrated Dash a few months ago, whose Hybrid App allows users to manage their funds via cryptocurrency or fiat and allows users to make payments at countless merchants via the Paycent debit card by seamlessly exchanging between cryptocurrency and fiat. In the most recent development update, Paycent highlights the advantages of their partnership with Dash, including Paycent reducing their exchange fees.
“[The Paycent Hybrid App] allows you to seamlessly move across digital assets and fiat; and vice versa. You can now transact using Dash with ease at zero transaction fees for a limited time period.”
They also highlighted why they decided to integrate Dash as a feature of their Hybrid App.
“Dash is the quickest, cheapest and most user-friendly payment-focused digital asset in the world. Dash transactions are easy to make. It is fast, secure and seamless throughout the Dash ecosystem.”
In the development update, Paycent also announced a referral program where users get $5 USD per referral for up to $500 USD in total.
Hybrid adoption by larger merchants
The Paycent development update comes at a conspicuous time of the announcement of the Bakkt exchange and their partnership with Microsoft and Starbucks among others. Bakkt is being founded by Jeffrey C. Sprecher, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which is the parent company that owns the New York Stock Exchange. They want to become a trusted third party for large merchants that still cannot deal in cryptocurrency and would instead prefer payment in either fiat or instant conversion to fiat. Bakkt is still in early stage development and relatively secret so not much is know about what cryptocurrencies they will integrate. However, just the general venture indicates large merchants’ desires to become involved in the cryptocurrency sector without direct involvement for legal and/or logistical reasons.
Cryptocurrency has recently seen wider adoption with merchants, but is still struggling with adoption by relatively large merchants that are integral in the everyday lives of consumers. Two big reasons are tax implications and logistical issues of achieving agreement with major stakeholders of the company. However, companies like Paycent with Dash, and soon Bakkt, will enable a bridge across these concerns by enabling instant conversion between cryptocurrency and fiat for merchants that do not wish to hold cryptocurrency, but still wish to do business with cryptocurrency users. This provides an opportunity for larger growth and adoption of cryptocurrency not just among these larger merchants, but also among consumers whom will now have vastly more options of where to spend their cryptocurrency.
Dash already facilitates widespread adoption
As Paycent mentioned, Dash leverages its very low transaction fees, fast confirmation times, security, and ease of use to make consumer payments extremely easy. This has enabled Dash to already be directly adopted by over 2,000 merchants globally, plus 7,000 more merchants via Rewards.com by the end of 2018, and many more through Bitrefill. This competitive advantage has been enabled by the Dash DAO and treasury that has allowed Dash to professionally pay developers to consistently maintain and improve the network. This feature also enables Dash to have defacto figure heads, while staying decentralized, to represent the network and provide a personal source of knowledge for other companies to approach when thinking about integrations.
As Dash continues to grow its network and adoption, not only through partnerships like Paycent with independent and instant Dash-to-fiat conversion, but also through direct merchant acceptance of Dash, integrations with projects like Bakkt will become less necessary. Dash is continuing to see rapid growth despite the market-wide exchange price declines, which is an indication that Dash is being used for everyday purchases rather than speculation. These advantages of Dash arise from Dash’s focus on being a payment method for everyday transactions by everyday consumers.
