This Week In Dash: November 19th

This week has been another fabulous week for Dash with some awesome news developments! Continue reading to get a summary of the week!

Dash Integrations of the Week:

Large Venezuelan Department Store Chain Adopts Dash: TRAKI has been in business for over 30 years and operates 49 branches across numerous cities in Venezuela that sell items ranging from fashion to food and cookware. A redditor recently made a Bitcoin purchase and showed that the store also accepts Dash, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. This move joins Tu Pana Charcuter, an online Venezuelan grocery store, and over 2,200 other merchants in escaping Venezuelan inflation by accepting Dash.
Panda Exchange Integrates Dash, Adds Fiat Liquidity: Panda will offer Dash-fiat pairs with the Euro and the US dollar for users in the European and Panamanian markets and will add Dash-crypto pairs with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI and TrueUSD for other verified users. Panda Exchange will also be utilizing Dash InstantSend, which not all exchanges that trade Dash utilize, but will soon become the norm with Automatic InstantSend in upgrade 0.13.0. The integration adds to the effort of Dash to increase liquidity so consumers and merchant can more easily buy Dash and to help stabilize price movements.

Dash Developments of the Week:

Spark, a Dash Point-of-Sales App, Wins Startup Challenge: Spark, which previously received funding from Dash’s DAO Treasury and DashBoost has now received $5,000 USD, co-working space, and legal support after winning a startup challenge among 40-50 competitors. Spark also recently integrated CoinText to expand Spark’s offering to include SMS payments and service individuals that do not have/wish to use smartphone wallets. Spark better enables more merchants to accept Dash through a simple interface and demonstrated that a significant project can seek funding through alternative methods other than just the Dash DAO Treasury.
Mega Dash Raffle Goes Live to Incentivize Dash Funding: Mega Dash Raffle (MDR) has developed a raffle/lottery system to incentivize Dash users to donate to Dash projects seeking funding. For each raffle, 50% goes to the project/raffle owner, 40% goes to a randomly selected winner, and 10% goes to MDR for operational costs. To customize the platform and accommodate various types of proposals, MDR will feature three different classes of raffles that will run for different lengths of time with different ticket prices. MDR and other funding sources help supplement the DAO Treasury during exchange price pressure and also demonstrate that not all projects have to get funding from the DAO Treasury to be functional.

Security News of the Week:

Security Compromises Remind Dash Users to Remain Vigilante: A recent court filling has a plaintiff claiming that a defendant stole over $1 million USD from their online cryptocurrency account by utilizing a technique called SIM-swapping. The process involves the hacker using stolen data, like a birthday or social security number, to get a cellular company to switch the phone number from the rightful owner’s device to the hacker’s device. This then enables the hacker to pass two-factor authentication used on online exchanges and wallets. Dash has projects like MyDashWallet and, soon, Evolution that aim to make practicing safe security easy so consumers do not default to online exchanges for their simplicity, but lack of security.
Amazon Customer Data Leak Shows Need for Better Privacy: Amazon has revealed that due to a “technical error” customers’ names and emails had temporarily been revealed. Amazon claims to have fixed the issue, but has released little information on the breach and how it was caused, which has created fears of other information like payment details being leaked. This follows a trend of big business names like Equifax, Venmo, Google, and MasterCard not taking proper precautions to conceal consumer data. Cryptocurrency offers privacy by keeping addresses separate from real-world identities, however, even these have come under attack recently. Dash offers additional privacy options by obscuring addresses further with PrivateSend, but still maintaining all transactions on the blockchain.

General News of the Week:

HandCash Switches to Bitcoin SV, Demonstrates Importance of Ease of Use: While the hashwar between Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV is not yet over, the username-based wallet has chosen to remain exclusively with the Bitcoin SV chain. In the announcement, HandCash mentioned that nChain, one of the main proponents of Bitcoin SV, owns patented technology that HandCash either uses or plans to use and does not want to lose access to the technology. The issue draws attention to Dash’s Evolution, which will enable usernames, contact lists, and DApps, but on the blockchain to eliminate the risk of censorship or influence by third-party actors.
Dash Mining Competition Heats Up As New Hardware is Released: The bear market is causing many small and medium sized miners to shut down operations, which is causing concerns about hashrates that secure the network. However, new and more efficient mining equipment continues to be released demonstrating investor confidence in the sector. Additionally, Dash’s hashrate has remained near all time highs, while other hashrates have been falling, which also shows miner and investor confidence in the long-term returns and performance of Dash. However, as hashrates fall with exchange prices, it also provides an opportunity for new parties to enter the mining sector.
Cryptocurrency Beats Gold in New Ron Paul Poll: A twitter poll by the famous liberty and sound money advocate asked respondents how they would invest $10,000 USD if they could not touch it for 10 years. Over 94,000 people answered and 50% said Bitcoin compared to only 37% who preferred gold. This marks a shift in sentiment since Ron Paul gained many of his followers in his 2008 and 2012 US presidential run, which was before Bitcoin was widely know and many of his follows were gold and silver bugs. During these periods of artificially low interest rates, Dash offers individuals around a 6.7% return per annum in exchange for helping secure the network.

Dash Media of the Week:

Crypto Show Appearances at World Crypto Con: Joël Valenzuela made a couple appearances on The Crypto Show as a substitute host for Chuck Williams. Check it out to watch Joël chat with Samir Bandali, PR and partnerships manager of CoinPayments, and Paul Puey, CEO of Edge.
Dash Force Podcast with Spark Developer, Kodaxx: This week, the guys chat with Kodaxx, the creator of Spark, the Dash point of sales solution. He discussed his stages of development, problems solved, and how he made Spark a reality on a shoestring budget. Make sure to tune in since you do not want to miss all the valuable insights!

Dashgiving has given the community a lot to be thankful for despite the exchange price declines with fantastic integrations, developments and announcements! Stay tuned into our site and social media networks to see all the upcoming Dash News! We hope that our content and coverage was very informative and enjoyable this week and we cannot wait to see what awesome Dash News awaits us next week!