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Dash has been integrated into 10 Venezuelan locations of top-four chicken restaurant chain Church’s Chicken.

As announced today, Dash has been integrated as a payment option in 10 of the 13 local Church’s franchises. This was made possible through a joint effort from Dash Venezuela and the Dash Core team’s business development department. According to Church’s Chicken Venezuela’s General Manager Orlando Gustavo Navas, this integration represents a growing confidence in Dash as an emerging payment method:

“The Dash Venezuela and Dash Core Group teams have been instrumental in helping us adapt our payment systems, staff training, and providing counsel on all essential internal and legal processes for this integration, helping us become a global pioneer franchise in terms of accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method. This integration was the result of our trust in Dash and its role as a growth agent in this new financial world – a system which can be successful in any market across any number of different industries.”

Founded in Texas in 1952, Church’s is one of the top-four fast food chicken restaurants according to Wikipedia, along with fellow major industry players Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeye’s, and Chick-fil-A. It claims over 1,700 locations in 25 countries, 13 of those locations in Venezuela.

A partnership between Dash Venezuela and the Dash Core team

The Church’s integration was reached through a partnership with two different Dash teams, the Core team and Dash Venezuela. According to Global Head of Business Development for the Dash Core team Bradley Zastrow, Dash Venezuela began the relationship, with the Core team coming in for professional business development support:

“We’re proud to be the exclusive cryptocurrency payment for Church’s Chicken in Venezuela, it’s further evidence that Dash leads the way in digital payments. The Dash Venezuela team has done an incredible job fostering this emerging ecosystem on the ground, and it’s exciting to be integrating with a major national food chain at the franchise level, or the first time in Dash history. Like many great initiatives, the seeds for this partnership were planted in an earlier conference event held by the Dash Venezuela team. They kicked off the initial conversations, with Dash Core coming in later to help support and finalize the partnership.”

The Dash decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) funds a variety of different initiatives to promote Dash, including Dash News. While operating independently and autonomously, these groups do work together to maximize the effectiveness of their efforts, as was the case with the Church’s integration.

Dash adoption continues to surge in the bear market

Despite less than optimal market conditions, Dash continues to see impressive growth in global merchant adoption, standing out as many projects see decreased use or become insolvent. At time of writing, over 4,400 businesses accepting Dash are listed on DiscoverDash, with nearly 2,500 located in Venezuela alone. Colombia-based merchant adoption teams, meanwhile, claim 311 Dash accepting businesses, with 181 listed on DiscoverDash at present.

South America remains a prime target for cryptocurrency adoption, with Venezuela’s economic turmoil and hyperinflation making it a classic use case. Neighboring Colombia, which has seen an influx of Venezuelan refugees, has also been a hotbed for Dash adoption. Facilitating cross-border economic activity through borderless cryptocurrency payments could prove to be one of Dash’s first significant success stories.

Update: Footage has been released showing the first Dash transactions at Church’s in Venezuela, which is embedded below