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Dash Brazil has partnered with ATAR Payment Processor and Stratum exchange to enable Dash users to make purchases at over 2.5 million merchants in Brazil.

Dash Brazil is proud to announce a partnership with @ATARpay Payment processor and @StratumHK Exchange to allow @Dashpay users to spend their funds in over 2.5 million merchants in Brazil. Have A Dash Day! pic.twitter.com/G9iU20rvb7 — Ajude a Testar a Nova Plataforma do Dash (@DashDinheiro) December 13, 2019

ATAR has developed a mobile money wallet along with a hardware NFC (near-field communication) bracelet that enables consumers to make contactless payments anywhere Mastercard is accepted, which is currently at 85% of the machines (2.5 million merchants) in Brazil. Stratum is an online cryptocurrency exchange that enables consumers to buy, sell, and withdrawal cryptocurrency, as well as also top up their cell phones, pay utility bills in Brazil, and top up ATAR band bracelets.

Dash’s inroads in Brazilian markets and NFC payment experiments

Dash has been involved in experiments previous to ATAR to leverage NFC payments. A previous project was able to get 25% of individuals at an Estonian music festival with 4,000 total attendees to spend over €19,000 EUR in Dash via NFC bracelets over four days. The Dash wallet has also been upgraded to support Apple Watch features.

In addition, Dash has also made inroads into Brazilian markets, recently added to Brazilian payment and service gateway Kamoney, which also enables Brazilians to pay utility bills. Additionally, this year Dash has been added to Brazilian exchanges PagCripto, CoinTrade.cx, NovaDAX, 3xbit, CoinBene, and XDEX, significantly growing options to purchase Dash in the country.

Balancing usability with trustlessness

The partnership of Dash Brazil with Stratum exchange and the user-friendly ATAR payment processor helps lower this adoption barrier by making payments easier and more accessible at more merchants, providing a valuable stepping stone to accepting Dash payments directly without converting into fiat currency. Stratum bill pay presents an even larger opportunity since it is a necessity that most Brazilians have to do, but paying with cryptocurrency makes online payments available to consumers that do not have a bank account.

Cryptocurrency was created to be a trustless source of payments for individuals to escape high banking fees, along with potential government and private censorship that occurs when consumers and merchants must rely on third parties to facilitate payments. However, after ten years since the creation of Bitcoin, the entire cryptocurrency sector has still struggled to achieve mass adoption. A contributing factor has been a lack of user friendliness, leading to third parties entering the market to facilitate easier usability and greater merchant acceptance as a trade-off for decentralization.