Dash, the fastest growing cryptocurrency this year, has announced a business partnership with digital payments platform BlockPay that allows people to pay for goods in Dash, directly from the merchant.

The deal follows several corporate alliances the Dash team has cultivated in Q1 2017, stemming from meteoric gains in value and trading volumes across January and February. BlockPay, headquartered in Munich, is becoming wildly popular internationally, particularly in Europe and Latin America because it enables Point of Sale transactions at no cost to the merchant and extremely low fees for the consumer.

Daniel Diaz, Dash VP of Business Development said:

“This partnership benefits our entire community and all future Dash users because adoption grows alongside real world applications. We found that BlockPay and Dash have very common goals and together we are educating people on how cryptocurrencies can often be a better alternative to fiat. People are really starting to understand that they do have the power to change lives. Dash is a project that has been focused a lot on usability as digital cash, and we want people to have a similar experience doing both online and Point of Sale transactions. BlockPay has taken solid steps in this direction, developing software to make it easier for brick and mortar shops to accept digital currency seamlessly.

Dash joins several other leading cryptocurrencies available for use on the BlockPay POS platform, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Steem, Litecoin and Dogecoin.

Christoph Hering, CEO and Co-founder of BlockPay, said adding support for Dash was not a difficult decision.

“We added Dash because we see a huge potential in the very active Dash community and in the underlying scaling technology of Dash. At the moment, Bitcoin has a big problem from a consumer perspective. The slow transaction speed, the high transaction fees and the speculative nature of Bitcoin make it very unsexy for everyday consumption. Now, comparing the altcoin ecosystem, many struggle with user adoption, high volatility and a missing business orientation. I think that the Dash Network is different, because it has a strong and active community, a great worker system funding growth and marketing plus an active development team that is building the right tools for mass adoption.”

As the network grows and increases its user base, Dash is focusing efforts on providing more versatility and flexibility in the way people can make everyday purchases. Users can buy products from the comfort of their home and office online, and now from hundreds of physical stores.

“BlockPay helps connect the worlds of retail and virtual currency. Because mainstream users are less familiar with the cryptocurrency culture right now, it will be important for them to experience digital currencies, at least partially, in ways they are already familiar with. Point of Sale solutions that are helping retail stores accept digital currencies in ways the public is used to help build the cultural bridges we need for widespread digital currency adoption. We also want to see a greater adoption of InstantSend. The Dash InstantSend feature is very powerful for this type of application, as it allows for secure transactions instantaneously directly from the network which is perfect for Point of Sale situations,” Diaz said.

BlockPay is one of the fastest growing Point of Sale platforms for digital currencies and boasts a global Ambassador team of over 50 people in 36 countries. Each representative is working on securing the platform implementation in hundreds of convenience stores, grocery marts, gas stations, supermarkets, hotels, and e-commerce outlets. BlockPay also natively supports Loyalty Points, 44 languages, targeted advertising, eReceipts, custom Integrations, and soon employee tracking, tipping and C-IPFS/meshnet.

“From a merchant’s perspective, BlockPay alleviates the electronic payment problems of high fees from credit card transactions, fraud, chargebacks, and rolling reserves, and provides merchants with a way to accept the next generation of digital currencies at zero cost. On the other side, BlockPay provides crypto consumers with the unique opportunity to use their favorite coins and wallets in hundreds of brick and mortar businesses around the world,” Hering said.

Dash users can pay at BlockPay terminals by scanning a QR-Code or tapping their phone on the NFC-Terminal. The payment and settlement process takes just a few seconds.