The team behind privacy-centric cryptocurrency, Dash, have announced a project to add the currency to Lamassu ATM machines.

Dash is partnering with Deginner, a cryptocurrency development firm with experience in working on Lamassu machines, to perform the integration. Dash and Deginner have signed a two year services agreement as it is required to ensure the integration will be maintained for any changes in Dash or the Lamassu system.

Dash lead developer and founder, Evan Duffield, stated:

We are very happy to announce our project to integrate Dash into the Lamassu ATM machines. One of our top priorities from a business development perspective is to improve direct access to our network for end users. We believe crypto ATMs are a great way for regular people to get access to DASH without being adept to crypto-currency online trading and Lamassu has currently the largest number of machines operating around the world of all the manufacturers.

Duffield and the Dash core team are proposing to the Dash community a budget of 610.26 DASH, approximately $1845, for the Lamassu ATM integration over 12 months.

Duffield explained the importance of the ATM integration:

This is a big project, as one key requirement of the integration is for Dash to be able to be presented to the user side-by-side with Bitcoin, meaning a current BTM operator can continue to offer BTC as he normally does and just expand to also offer DASH as an alternative by selecting an option in the menu if he desires. This means the whole system, including the UI, need to change as it was originally designed to do only BTC. This is critical to make it attractive for existing operators to offer DASH without any disruption to their BTC business or machines, just a menu option where they can activate DASH support at will. Also, for new DASH ATM operators which primary interest is DASH it makes sense to also offer BTC, creating synergies between both networks. The alternative of converting the machines from BTC exclusive to DASH exclusive was not really viable as there would not be a business case for current BTM operators to exclude BTC in favor of DASH at this point in time.

Apparently, Deginner CEO and Founder Ira Miller was key to opening up the opportunity for Dash by leading the conversation with the Lamassu team. Miller is a developer and entrepreneur who has worked in the bitcoin ecosystem since 2011, was part of Bitinstant, and co-founded Coinapult in 2012 with Erik Voorhees, now CEO of ShapeShift.io.