TL;DR: Dash Merchant Venezuela is under fire by its own broader community for providing “inaccurate and deceptive documents regarding salary payouts,” according to Dash Watch. The statement comes on the heels of media reports actual adoption in the country has been thin at best and over-hyped. The Dash community is currently debating whether to continue funding the project as a result.

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Dash Merchant Venezuela Suspected Of Embezzlement

Dash Watch posted in its Report on Financial Activity October-December 2018, “After previewing our final report below for errors on 1/24/2019, Dash Merchant Venezuela [DMV] has acknowledged that they have provided us with inaccurate and deceptive documents regarding salary payouts.”

It was further revealed irregularities might have had something to do with safety worries among the DMV team, as the country has been quite chaotic in recent months and into the present. Acknowledging their report was “compiled before we learned this,” Dash Watch since have “been able to collect enough evidence to assess that the amount claimed as spent on tips over three months of 9,760.42USD is credible.”

The Dash community has been particularly focused on Venezuela, and the project garnered headlines around the world for its merchant chain adoption prowess. Skeptics remain as to its actual use in the country, but for a crypto not even in the top 10 by market cap, Dash for sure punches above its weight. News of possible fraud or embezzlement, even the hint of it, could spell disaster, especially in a protracted bear market.

We Say Sorry

“DMV has committed to us going forward that they will be providing full and honest transparent reporting,” Dash Watch continued, “and have already started providing us corroborative documents to this end which we are actively working to prepare a follow-up report on.”

An official statement from Dash Merchant Venezuela confirmed “the main and only reason of the decision we took was due to privacy and personal safety concern regarding Venezuela’s insecurity. We didn’t want our salaries and our employees salaries to be disclosed due to the high risk this involves.”

They’ve elected in the future “to provide [salary information] privately with Dash Watch. We have already provided the accurate information to them and will continue to cooperate as much as we can. We still made a mistake and we say sorry,” DMV admitted. They insisted, however, “All our results are real and have been verified by different trusted people in the community (even from the Dash Core Group).” As of this writing, renewal of the program under Dash’s governance system is being debated in comments and voted on.

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