On 29 August 2018, helped by recent good news, the Dash (DASH) price surged past $200, its highest level since August 8th. In the past week, the price has gone up 36%, and Dash seems to be on the verge of overtaking Monero (XMR) in market capitalization.

According to data from CryptoCompare, at the time of writing (August 29th, 12:00 UTC +01:00), DASH is trading at $197.72, up more than 5% in the past 24-hour period.

Below, is the one-month price chart for DASH:



Dash

Between August 22nd (12:00 UTC +01:00) and August 29th (12:00 UTC +01:00), DASH went from $145.29 to $197.72, i.e. an increase of 36%. Furthermore, earlier today, at 10:50 (UTC +01:00), DASH went over $200 for the first time since August 8th, before easing back slightly.

So, what is behind this price action?

Well, during the same one-week period, Bitcoin (BTC) has gone from $6,679 to $7,100, i.e. an increase of 6.3%, going past the $7,000 resistance level for the first time since August 7th. Usually when there is a Bitcoin rally, it helps most altcoins as well, and they tend to go experience higher percentage gains than Bitcoin (and the reverse seems true as well).

However, perhaps, the biggest reason for Dash’s strong rally during this past seven 7 days is the good (DASH-related) news coming out of Latin America.

First, as covered by CryptoGlobe, Dash Core Group reported last week that around 200 merchants a month are signing up to accept DASH, including brand names such as Subway. In fact, the CEO, Ryan Taylor, told Business Insider:

“We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month. Earlier this year, Venezuela became our No. 2 market, even ahead of China and Russia, which are, of course, huge into cryptocurrency right now.”

Second, on 27 August 2018, came the news of a partnership between Dash and Kripto Mobile aimed at expanding Dash’s adoption in Latin America. Kripto Mobile will be selling $100 phones in Latin America that come pre-loaded with “a Dash wallet to store Dash, services to obtain Dash, and the Bitrefill app to enable spending on various services.”

The Dash CEO told Business Insider:

“Our partnership with Kripto will put all the components needed to use Dash preloaded into the phones of 10,000 new Venezuelan consumers every month. This complements the over 1,000 merchants already accepting Dash in Venezuela, and really addresses the chicken and egg problem of attracting both consumers and merchants to our growing ecosystem.”

Featured Image Courtesy of Dash Core Group