There is an idea floating around that somehow merchant adoption is not a good use of our time. It’s not a good way to get people using Dash. We need integrations. We need something.
But not merchant adoption.
This idea is wrong. Literally every step that leads to success for Dash revolves around merchant adoption.
Dash Core Group has identified these 5 areas to focus on:
- Trading
- Cannabis
- Hyperinflation
- Cross-border payments
- High-chargeback industries
Trading is about getting exchanges to trust automatic InstantSend. An exchange is a merchant. Cannabis is about merchants selling a product to a consumer. Hyperinflation is about people using Dash as a store of value, and the first question they ask is what can I do with Dash. Cross-border payments is all about remittances and businesses paying each other. Chargebacks only happen to merchants.
Thus, everything is merchant adoption.
And this makes sense because Dash is digital cash and what do you use cash for but to buy stuff? Buy it from whom? Merchants.
Do we want big merchants or small merchants?
Why not both? Because to get big merchants you have to put on a suit, make presentations, schmooze execs, write software to integrate your systems with theirs, and because in a blink of an eye one jittery exec can pull you out of a hundred stores. Or replace you.
And then what is the ROI on all your hard work, your pretty suits and your perfect powerpoints?
Nada.
Small business is the backbone of any resilient economy, and Dash is no different. For the same price as 1 big merchant, we can get 10x as many retail locations with small merchants. Sure, it is a PITA. But the strategy works.
And it means that when you visit those corporate HQs you can direct those execs to real small chains where they can spend Dash and see what it’s like. They might even feel like Dash is a groundswell that could leave them behind.
Nah, I don’t know George, I’m not feeling good about merchant adoption.
OK, let’s say we abandon merchant adoption. How can we claim to be digital cash?
Who are we without merchant adoption? A collection of odd use cases? Even the use cases revolve around merchant adoption.
Hyperinflationary economies and remittances require merchant adoption because people when asked to trust Dash ask, well, what the heck can I use it for? Merchant adoption is the answer to that question.
If we abandon merchant adoption, there is no point to doing consumer adoption. If there is no point to consumer adoption, then what are we doing here? Who are we teaching about Dash? After we teach them about Dash and they say, oh, cool, now what can I do with it, what answer will we give them?
Dollar-cost average yourself into a masternode? How long is that going to take? Why do I want a masternode? To process transactions. What transactions, if there are no merchants??
Creating a wide array of usability options is a prerequisite for next steps.
When there are many small shops, we can sell remittances because people know they can use the Dash for something.
When we sell remittances, particularly into hyperinflationary economies, people have a reason to hold Dash, because they can see they might come out ahead with it or at least stop a loss, and they know they can exit it any time by spending it.
Merchant adoption is the foundation of everything. Cut it short and you have cut the tree at the roots.
You won’t get any fruit that way.
