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Dash Nigeria recently got GigaLayer, a web domain name and hosting service, to integrate Dash after attending the Nerds Unite Conference in Lagos, Nigeria on February 15, 2019.

The Nerds Unite Conference featured over 500 attendees that are professionals in fintech, blockchain, and IT from all over west Africa and the world. Aside from making valuable connections and setting up wallets, Dash Nigeria was able to forge a partnership with GigaLayer so they would accept Dash payments for their services. The direct integration is significant since the only other cryptocurrency accepted by the platform was Bitcoin.

GigaLayer’s main operations are in Nigeria, but also services individuals and companies is 13 different African countries for a total of 6,000 business owners. Additionally, GigaLayer’s CEO, Ahmad Mukoshy, cited Dash’s “speed in payments”, “low transaction fees”, and the desire to “support the community and also be part of the community” as part of the reasons to integrate Dash. Ahmad Mukoshy also went on to discuss how the integration helps expand options for consumers.

“Faster payments and ability to buy domain names across multiple African countries will interest a Dash user, they can also buy virtual and dedicated servers around Africa using their Dash not to mention many other services of GigaLayer.”

Forging connections to benefit consumers

Web services such as domain purchasing and web hosting is a very useful tool and even more popular within the tech and cryptocurrency space. Thus, GigaLayer will provide everyday value for consumers by giving them a service they needed anyways that they can now purchase with Dash. This is an overlooked factor in achieving adoption since in the early days, and somewhat still today, many items sold for cryptocurrencies are superfluous novelty products such as t-shirts, artwork, books, etc. While these are cool products and deserve merit, they ultimately are not going to help the average consumer live their everyday lives the same as the ability to pay for groceries, rent, gas, business products, etc, in Dash.

As more businesses that focus on everyday consumption items accept cryptocurrency, not only can consumers more confidently spend cryptocurrency, but workers will be more willing to accept wages in cryptocurrency since they know they can easily spend it on essentials. The beginnings of this supply chain adoption is being seen in the cannabis sector where Alt Thirty Six has initiated a cash pickup system that will pay dispensaries in Dash for their cash and the dispensaries can then use the CannTrade platform to pay their suppliers in Dash. This saves a lot of money for the cannabis industry due to the banking issues in the United States, but the cryptocurrency benefits can also be carried over to other industries that focus on everyday consumption items to save money typically spent on card and bank processing fees.

The Dash network helps facilitate these partnerships

While the benefits of cryptocurrency adoption can been seen, it is still hard for many merchants to take the leap into cryptocurrencies due to its foreign nature. Dash is able to mitigate this switching cost by having a DAO Treasury that can fund community outreach groups to help setup merchants with Dash. These community outreach groups are able to network and connect with merchants on an individual level and illustrate to them how Dash helps them achieve their own goals.

Additionally, there are some locations that sell necessities that are starting to accept Dash, such as an online grocery store and department store in Venezuela, a grocery store in Austria, and more. Then there are hundreds of gift cards to everyday locations, including grocery stores and other necessity items, that can be purchased with Dash on Bitrefill and eGifter. Dash is striving to become digital cash and is achieving that goal by gaining adoption in both novelty stores and at merchants that sell necessities for everyday individuals.