Discover Dash: A New App For Crypto Shopping

[Pegasus]

Spending cryptocurrency might get a whole lot easier—if you’re hodling Dash, that is. A new Android app will make it easy to find stores and ATMs that trade in the thirteenth-biggest cryptocurrency.

Similar to Yelp, the Discover Dash app is a directory of all known merchants which have integrated Dash payments, ranging from coffee shops and bars to electronics stores. The app comes with built-in geo-location features and automatic translation into Spanish, English and Russian. It also has live chat support, as well as functions through which users can report inaccuracies.

The app is based on DiscoverDash.com, an online merchant directory which launched in 2017. The new Android app is a collaboration between Dash Force, the treasury-funded organization which created the listing service, and Really Bad Apps, a development group, according to a joint press release issued today.

At present, Discover Dash lists over 4,800 merchants, in categories like “Arts & Entertainment,” “Food and Drinks,” “Business Services,” and Dash ATMs. More than half the listings- 2552 of them – are located in Venezuela, with the U.S. in second place at 531.

Development on a budget

Although crypto winter has put the DAO on a shoestring budget, the new app did not break the bank, explains Joël Valenzuela, Public Outreach director for Dash Force. Although funding was not available, he said, “Really Bad Apps believed in the project enough to create the preliminary version of the app free of charge.”

“From the beginning, we have been passionate about the opportunities that cryptocurrency creates for mobile users around the world,” added Matthew Carlstrom, VP of Product at Really Bad Apps, in a statement.  “[W]e’re looking forward to seeing the community grow as Dash customers use our app to discover the many businesses that accept Dash nearby.”

The Next Stage In Dash Evolution?

However, the new app may face competition down the road, after the release of the network’s Evolution upgrades.

“The Evolution platform will enable a wide variety of decentralized apps, and one of them may certainly be a next-level and more decentralized version of the Discover Dash app,” Valenzuela conceded in an email to Crypto Briefing. “I would be more than happy to see Discover Dash obsoleted by a superior service, and would be absolutely thrilled to see it made into a proper Evolution dApp.”

In the meantime, he added, “we’re happy to continue to serve the needs of the Global Dash Community.”

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