Popular cryptocurrency Dash just had its second physical “embassy” open in Austria. According to Dash Force News, the goal of the project is to engage in active marketing of the project and attempt to engage in dialogue and increase activity of Dash in the region.
Dash Gets Another Embassy
When you hear the word embassy, you probably think of a national embassy that represents the government of a foreign country within a host country. The goal of most embassies is to have a place for diplomats to stay, and have an office that is available to the public to help them perform all sorts of interactions with the government directly. For example, applying for visas, paying taxes, and so on.
But what Dash is doing here with its embassy program is a bit different. The goal of the program is to get more people interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain, educate the public, and to get more local businesses interested in accepting Dash as a means of payment.
In this regard, Dash has grown quite substantially in recent years in terms of the number of locations willing to accept it as payment. This is particularly true in Venezuela, where there are quite a few shops that will accept it.
This is interesting because in general, altcoins have not been very successful in convincing store and business operators to use them. Most operators that accept cryptocurrency do so through a third-party processor like Coinbase, which is limited in the number of currencies it can accept. Dash is not currently available on Coinbase, although a number of commentators online have long speculated that it will eventually be supported there.
A Personal Touch
One major issue that cryptocurrency adoption has faced is that the community is quite insular. That being, most marketing attempts are targeted exclusively at those who are already interested in or invested in cryptocurrency. This can also be seen through the choice of language used, as jargon is omnipresent and would likely leave someone new to crypto confused.
Dash is trying to change this paradigm by instead of just waiting for people to find out about it through using other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin first, they want to instead reach out to completely new people and get them involved in Dash first and foremost.
The idea behind the embassy seems to be that it is an attempt to break out of the insular crypto world and try to get literal boots on the ground in attracting adoption in potentially for tile areas like Austria.
Follow the Money Dash
This begs the question, who is paying for this? Running a physical location undoubtedly requires funding, and unless you are entirely volunteer-based, you’ll need to pay for at least a few employees.
This is where Dash has a chance to really stretch its legs and put on a show of force. Dash is a self funded cryptocurrency. With each block reward, a percentage is set aside and put into a transparent account from which anyone can submit a proposal to be voted on. If the proposal passes, then it is funded. The recipient of that money can then use it to complete the task as promised and in turn increase their reputation within the community.
A successful track record of completed proposals could lead to much bigger and larger scale projects to be funded by the community. And with Dash being such a highly valued asset, the amount of funding potentially available from Dash is enormous.
We found the proposal for the embassy program (all proposals are publicly available online) and saw exactly what this program costs. Apparently, it is costing the Dash treasury a whopping $109,750 or 428 DASH per month. The proposal passed with 798 Yes votes and 189 No votes. This follows the program’s first proposal which passed for a one time payment of $52,964 or 207 DASH.
Is the program worth it? Take a look at their presentation and decide for yourself:
