This week has been another amazing week for Dash with wonderful new integrations, developments, and news! Continue reading to get a summary of the week.

Dash Developments of the Week:

Dash Text Expands Market Reach of Digital Cash with Launch of Telegram Integration: The popular platform that enable consumers to send Dash via SMS messaging has now integrated with the Telegram app in Venezuela and Colombia to further expand their market reach. Around 60% of Venezuelans and 59% of Colombians do not own smartphones, which makes SMS integration integral to mass adoption in these countries. The Telegram integration brings the simplicity of Dash Text to other users that already have smartphones to make adoption even more seamless and thus more likely.

Dash-Exclusive Cannabis Payment Solution Alt Thirty Six Lands $10 Million Funding Round: The company that specifically caters to the cannabis industry and was initially funded via the Dash treasury in exchange for a 36 month Dash exclusive period has received $10 million USD in series A funding. While the company had to delay B2C services, their B2B services got off to a successful start with WebJoint and CannTrade integrations and processing over six-figure weekly volumes by exchanging companies’ cash for Dash so they could more easily pay their suppliers. The funding not only helps provide a validation of their business, but also of the Dash network.

Dash Integrations of the Week:

SouthXchange Enables Dash InstantSend Support, Joining a Growing List of Exchanges: The Argentinian exchange is the latest exchange to enable support for Dash InstantSend giving their users a significant speed advantage over users on many other exchanges. Currently, Kraken, Bitbns, OKEX, Digifinex, IDAX, BitInka, Panda Exchange, CoinCola, Paycent, VegaWallet, 3xbit, Jinance all support Dash’s InstantSend and is rapidly growing. Previously, InstantSend was a feature for an additional fee, but earlier this month, Dash activated automatic InstantSend for no additional fee, which significantly increases the value proposition of Dash regardless of which wallet the sender is using. Nevertheless, services still have to recognize Dash’s instantly confirmed transactions and display the confirmation security to users.

YouHodler Cryptocurrency Lending Platform Adds Dash: YouHodler now enables Dash users to borrow in EUR, USD, or Stablecoins, as well as convert their Dash to other cryptocurrencies on their platform, including being able to convert to fiat and withdrawal straight to their debit/credit card. The platform is currently offering a special for users to get a 90% LTV ration, but they typically allow a 55% to 80% loan-to-value ratio up to $30,000 USD pre-approved loans with 8-day, 50-day, and 120-day repayment terms. Their interest rates usually vary from 5% to 13% depending on the exact terms. YouHodler and other cryptocurrency lending platforms like SALT and Celsius help ensure that Dash users can pay their debts and stay solvent without having to completely divest from their holdings. Additionally, these lending platforms meshes the cryptocurrency sector with the traditional financial sector making wider adoption more likely.

Linking Cryptocurrency with Traditional Banking: PiixPay and AavePay have both integrated Dash, which offers cryptocurrency users a way to use their coins to deposit money directly to the bank accounts of individuals and companies that have not yet directly adopted cryptocurrencies. These transitional services allow both payment senders and receivers to be able to use their preferred currency while paying a minimal fee for the middleman service until cryptocurrency sees wider adoption.

Security News of the Week:

Suspect Apprehended in Historic Heist of Over 74,900 Dash: An Israeli man has accused his roommate of stealing 74,990.74 Dash (around $9 million USD). The suspect is believed to have had easy access to the victim’s unprotected laptop, which reminds users that no matter how secure cryptocurrency might be, there can still be user errors that put them at risk. Good practices to minimize theft risks include good password protections and to spread out Dash holdings across multiple hardware wallets with different keys stored in different locations. Cryptocurrency brings users additional financial and monetary freedoms, but also comes with additional responsibilities.

General News of the Week:

Cryptocurrency Code Contribution Data Shows Litecoin, Dogecoin Development Nearly Dead: Electric Capital looked at 20,000+ code repos and 16 million commits to gauge development progress and found Litecoin and Dogecoin to have nearly no recent development activity. However, the overall number of cryptocurrency developers doubled over the past two years across all coins. Although, code repos are not the best gauge for a coin’s status since there can still be a lot of development, such as Dash practicing Squash Merging to help optimize work flows, which initially comes across as smaller commit data. Nevertheless, the different code development rates are shedding light on how different coin structures affect their performance.

Yelp Adds “Accepts Cryptocurrency” Option As Dash and Bitcoin Cash Lead Merchant Listing Push: The popular merchant and listing review app with over 10 million downloads has added an accept cryptocurrency option, which helps show the growing influence of the sector. However, a general acceptance option does pose problems since a merchant might stop accepting coins without updating their profile or might only accept a few coins. Conversely, there are competing listing services that are more detailed by listing services based on specific coins, such as DiscoverDash for Dash and Bitcoin.com for Bitcoin Cash.

Google Poll Shows Most Europeans Bullish on Crypto, Bearish on Bitcoin: A new Google survey by BitFlyer of 10,000 Europeans in 10 different countries showed that 63% of respondents believe that cryptocurrencies will still exist within a decade, but only 49% believed that Bitcoin would make it through the decade. However, each country had varying degrees of belief for both cryptocurrency in general and Bitcoin. According to DiscoverDash, Europe currently has around 900 merchants that accept Dash with Dash Embassy DACH being the most significant Dash outreach group in the region.

Dash Media of the Week:

The Crypto Show – Evolution, Discover Dash, ChainLocks, and More With Joël Valenzuela: Joel made an appearance on the Crypto Show with Danny Sessom and former Dash developer Chuck Williams to talk about Dash’s recent development progress including version 0.13, InstantSend by default, the upcoming 0.14 version including ChainLocks, and the recent release of the DiscoverDash mobile app by Really Bad Apps. They also discussed the future development plans of version 1.0, full Evolution, and the decentralized application (DApp) platform.

RT News Reports on Dash and Cryptocurrency Support for Wikileaks Following Assange Arrest: In an RT News segment, Ben Swann, a prominent independent journalist, talked about Julian Assange’s arrest and how cryptocurrency can help support projects like Wikileaks. Swann discussed how over $34,000 in donations was raised in Bitcoin immediately after his arrest and the Wikileaks shop started to accept Dash after members of the Dash community reached out and asked them so they could help support Julian’s defense and the Wikileaks project. The event brings to mind the other independent journalism efforts that the Dash community has supported such as Ben Swann, the Free Thought Project, and We Are Change.

Dash Podcast Episode 101 with Ash Francis of Dash Retail: Ash joins the three amigos to discuss the potential for a new PR firm for Dash in the most recent treasury cycle, getting more exchanges to adopt Dash, the recent stablecoin news, how to gain consumer traction without relying on hype, and much more. Make sure to tune in to get these valuable insights!

Dash continues to power through the year with strong integrations and developments that are helping it become Digital Cash in everyday life for more individuals around the world. By giving consumers and merchants plenty of options in spending, earning, exchanging, and buying their Dash while also developing the network places Dash in a robust position to quickly adapt to changing demands and environments. As Dash further develops, there will be even more breaking news so make sure to follow Dash News on all our social media accounts to get these updates first!