Crypto Traders Pro Interviews Joël Valenzuela of DashNews.org! In this exclusive interview with Joël Valenzuela, recently upgraded to Dear Friend status for CTP, Kurt and Matthew interview Joël about the moves that Dash is making as well as talking about the general sphere of cryptocurrency. You can listen to this interview on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, and Buzzsprouts. We’re proud to be able to provide quality content and interviews with the movers and shakers of cryptocurrency – and we’re extremely proud to be able to interview Joël Valenzuela.
Joël Valenzuela is with DashNews.org, and a lot of our questions with Joël stems from mass adoption and how to use Dash in everyday transactions. He recently wrote a piece on DashNews.org about mass adoption. You can read that here. In this interview, we cover the new things that Dash is doing, new features of the cryptocurrency, as well as ways to push mass adoption and usage, particularly here in the United States.
Features
Something that was touted was Dash’s Instant Pay. With this feature that Dash is making more and more commonplace, transactions can be instantly sent and locked – this feature is critical for merchant adoption since that means merchants can reconcile their accounts and deliver goods and services immediately upon receipt.
The comparison was made – traditional merchant processing works because the funds are pending and on hold – therefore, merchants know that as soon as the transaction clears, even though they might not have funds on hand immediately, they know they’ll receive those funds.
With Dash, transactions will similarly be able to be confirmed. Merchants will be able to verify payment.
Dash vs. Others
Joël talked about Dash’s journey and goal of working to be the best payment cryptocurrency when compared to other cryptocurrencies. Just to make it clear, Grin with Mimblewimble is not making the Dash team throw their hands up in the air and give up.
Quite the contrary, Joël remarked how, if Grin lives up to the hype, would be able to fight for dominance against ZCash and Monero, something that would help each of the cryptocurrencies better themselves and improve to stay competitive.
Joël emphasized that competition is important, especially with a free-market environment that cryptocurrency currently holds. When talking about other cryptocurrencies, Kurt remarked how little can be done overall when the goal is to be the second best (in reference to Litecoin). Joël shared that sentiment. With Dash, they don’t care about paying homage to other cryptocurrencies for the sake of paying homage to them. Rather, they’d rather do the best they can in the niche that they’re trying to fill.
Dash’s Success
Joël reiterated Dash’s incredible success in driving mass adoption and usage in Venezuela. He explained that this was possible due to the location – Venezuela is a modern country with an educated population with access to stable Internet services. Add in hyperinflation, and cryptocurrency was the natural solution to the big problem that Venezuela was having with its economy. Due to the conditions above, Venezuela was the perfect location for mass adoption and usage, and it shows. Venezuela continues to add merchants, partnering with chain companies like Subway and Papa Johns for remittance to pay for goods and services.
He explained that the access to internet was critical for adoption, and referenced another country where cryptocurrency is struggling to take hold – Zimbabwe. Without reliable access to internet, cryptocurrency just wasn’t possible to take a foothold in Zimbabwe.
Joël also told us that nearby Columbia is another location that is slowly moving towards adopting Dash as a use of payment.
Dash in the US
CTP and Joël talked about how to use Dash in the US. Unfortunately, Dash, and as a whole cryptocurrency, has not seen the enormous push to adopt and use that Venezuela and other countries have seen. But that could soon change. We talked briefly about New Hampshire and the growing number of merchants who are opting to accept Dash as a payment for cryptocurrency.
More importantly, CTP and Joël talked about concrete methods on how to spend and use Dash today. Now. In the US. They used Chipotle as a reference point.
Joël introduced us to the Edge wallet which allows you to purchase cryptocurrency, including Dash, at a nice low flat rate. Using BitPay, which has support through Edge, you can purchase a Chipotle gift card instantly with Dash and its Instant Send feature, and redeem that gift card for food, faster than you could with a Visa card.
One of the big benefits of doing this is that Dash is offering 10% back in Dash when using this method. Effectively, you have the opportunity to get 10% back on your purchases if you use Dash as it currently stands today. If that isn’t a reason to start using Dash, I don’t know what is!
Wrap up
We’d like to take this time to thank DashNews.org and our dear friend Joël Valenzuela. It is with great friends like you that we’re able to confidently say that cryptocurrency is here to stay because of the work that you and your cohorts do.
We encourage you to take a look at our other podcasts, listen in, and let us know what you think on our Facebook page! We’d love to hear from you. Please also take the time to subscribe to us, on whatever platform you listen to the podcasts on, so you’re up to date with us throughout this cryptocurrency journey together!
