This Week In Dash: May 6th

This week has been another fantastic week in Dash with fantastic new integration, developments, and overall advancements. Continue reading below to get a summary of the week.

Dash Developments of the Week:

Dash Launches Dash Investment Foundation To Expand Growth Opportunities: Formerly known as Dash Ventures, Dash Investment Foundation is starting its launch process so the Dash network can take an equity stake in proposals it funds. It is believed to be the world’s first ownerless and memberless investment fund and will consist of six supervisors elected by the masternode network to ensure that the directors are carrying out the best wishes of the network, much like the Dash Trust Protectors. Final steps include elections that are planned for May 23rd to June 16th with Dash Watch auditing the results, along with approving investment objectives (e.g., maximize returns vs. growth of Dash usage).
My Big Takeaways from Dash Core Team Q1 2019 Conference Call: Joël breaks down the important parts of the Q1 call by highlighting the Dash Investment Foundation and answered Evolution questions. Dash Core Group has made the Evolution GitHub repositories public and will be simultaneously working on v0.14 (ChainLocks) and v1.0 (Evolution) to prioritize security without further delaying Evolution. DCG will also be submitting a multi-month treasury proposal that will be 50% of the allocatable funds to build up reserves. Alt36 will be launching their pre-pilot for point-of-sale purchases of cannabis with Dash on June 1st and has extended the Dash exclusivity period until the end of 2022. Finally, Cryptobuyer is used at 30 Traki stores and is seeing heavy Dash usage, including recommendations from Traki employees to use Dash due to the more pleasant experiences.

Dash Integrations of the Week:

Dash Launches Gift Card Marketplace With Dash-Back in eGifter and Anypay Partnership: Users will now be able to directly purchase eGifter giftcards with Dash on the Dash.org website by utilizing the AnyPay POS service and even getting a “Dash-Back” discount. The service adds to the previous eGifter integration as well as encourages use through the Dash-back incentive.
Holistic Decentralized Hospitality and Experience Network NuMundo Integrates Dash: The hospitality and experience network focusing on transformational travel has integrated Dash, which can be used at 800 different centers in over 100 countries. They cited mutual goals as a reason for integration, including a focus on adoption in Latin America. Cryptocurrencies currently make up around 3% of bookings and transactions on the platform.
China-Based Crypto-Only Marketplace Bibo Market Adds Dash: The Chinese only marketplace added Dash specifically for its usefulness as payments. Unfortunately, due to restrictive government policy, adoption of cryptocurrency as payments is slow. However, it is still seeing adoption, nevertheless, particularly among individuals looking to purchase internationally.

Dash Core Group Product Update:

Here’s an update from Liz Robuck, Chief Product Owner, on what’s been going on at Dash Core Group this week.

🍾 DashCore v0.14 release candidate 5 released to testnet
👥 Coded Inbound Account Activity — Contacts story on DashPay and fixed a balance calculation bug
📋 Implemented ability to paste payment request from clipboard on DashWallet Android
✅ Added tests for Exclude Unresponsive MN from MN List During Retries on Dash Platform

Dash Outreach of the Week:

Dash Force Meetup Contest Winners – April 2019: There were 14 wallets set up for 20 attendees over 2 meet ups across Africa. Make sure to check it out to see the winners and how you can host your own local meetup and potentially win some Dash.

General News of the Week:

7,000 Bitcoin Stolen from Binance, considers rollback: The attack on Binance compromised around 2% of their total BTC holdings in a hot wallet and also compromised 2FA codes, API Keys, and potentially other info. Upon noticing the attack, Binance shut down all withdrawal, but still allowed internal tradings. Binance has also clearly stated that they will being using their SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) funds to reimburse customers. In the immediate aftermath, CZ considered the option of rolling back the Bitcoin blockchain to distribute the stolen Bitcoin to miners, but this attack on the immutability of Bitcoin quickly cause a loud backlash and the abandonment of the issue. Dash’s coming Chainlocks would not even make this possible since the first seen block is locked-in and is much harder to change.
Fidelity Reportedly Getting Ready to Offer Cryptocurrency Trading: Fidelity is the latest traditional financial institution rumored to soon be introducing cryptocurrency trading for institutional investors. Fidelity was an early participant in the cryptocurrency market going all the way back to mining cryptocurrency pre-2015 and launching Fidelity Digital Assets last year. They also own 10% in Neptune Dash, the publicly traded masternode sharing service.
MasterCard Pressured to Monitor “Far-Right” Payments in Opportunity for Cryptocurrency: MasterCard is being pressured by activist groups to form a special “human rights committee” to monitor if any “far-right’ groups are using their services and then potentially discontinue services for these groups. The issue highlights the vast degrees of information that credit card services have on individuals and their ability to be a bottleneck for consumers looking to make and receive necessary payments. The most famous example is when many of these payment organization cutout Wikileaks when asked to do so by the U.S. government.
Maryland Creates New Law To Allow Blockchain Record Keeping by Corporations: Maryland, a U.S. state in the mid-atlantic, has a new law that amends the old General Corporation Law to allow corporations to use a distributed electronic network or database (blockchains) to store record keeping. The changes highlight how governments are starting to realize the benefits of blockchains as an immutable storage of information.

Dash Media of the Week:

Rob Odell on SALT Lending Adding Dash Masternode Support, Living On Crypto: Joël sits down with Rob O’Dell, the Head of Product for SALT Lending to talk about how the organization now allows individuals to collateralize loans with Dash, including allowing masternodes to still operate their masternodes for the duration of the loan. They also talk about the cryptocurrency price crash, which type of users had to liquidate and which survived, and how SALT helps people to completely live off crypto
What Is Money Podcast – Joël Valenzuela Living Completely Off of Crypto: Joël made a guest appearance on the What is Money Podcast to talk about sound money and his decision to live completely off Bitcoin and later Dash.
Andreas Brekken on Shitcoins, Bitcoin Origin Story, and Is Dash a Scam?: Joël interviews Andreas Brekken of Shitcoin.com about his experiences doing deep dives into cryptocurrency projects all the way from source code to final intended uses. They covered topics like the biggest Bitcoin Lightning Network node and why Monero fans like the fact that their coin is hard to use. They also cover the full Dash review from buying and running a masternode, creating proposals, voting on proposals, and spending it on goods and services.
Dash Podcast 103 with Benjamin Nitschke, CEO of DeltaEngine, Creator of MyDashWallet.org: This week, the guys welcome back Ben to talk about the full extent of MyDashWallet, including the 250,000 Dash transactions made on the wallet and their rapid growth, including still searching for a .NET developer. Ben talks about making PrivateSend available on their mobile wallet, MyDashWallet’s website revamp, and other new features. Ben also explains Dash Special Transactions and the effort to develop Special Transactions in the wallet. They guys then go in depth into their most recent stress test on the Dash network that reached over 3 million transactions within 24 hours. Make sure to tune in to get this very valuable knowledge!

Dash continues to break new grounds in the cryptocurrency space with new developments and integrations. This is helping set Dash apart from other cryptocurrencies by actually being used as Digital Cash in everyday life. Dash has plenty of more developments and integrations in the pipeline so make sure to subscribe to the social media channels of Dash News to be one of the first to get the breaking news.