Venezuela has recently been a very up and down kind of thing in the DAO. Do we still want to be in Venezuela? A lot of people have turned their backs on the more than USD$1 million we, Dash, invested there in 2017-2018.
But Venezuela remains the greatest testing ground in the world for cryptocurrency adoption in a hyperinflationary environment. Venezuela was once the wealthiest nation in Latin America, one of the top in the world. And it will be again. With more than 4 million Venezuelans working outside of Venezuela, Venezuela is a testing ground for remittances. We can lead the way in philanthropy in Venezuela, when not even the UN dares enter. Venezuela’s crisis is Dash’s opportunity not just to shine, but to position ourselves for decades to come.
We just need the right people working the country. People focused on results. Tough people, willing to go out in the streets and work with anyone. Business people. People with vision and drive. People who get the digital cash vision. Honest people.
That is my team, Dash Latam, and our many capable representatives in Venezuela, among them:
- Freddy Rauseo, Caracas
- Richard Jerez, Caracas Los Teques
- Luigi Quintero, San Cristóbal
- Edgar Caballero, Valencia
- Jose Rojas, Barquisimeto
- Jose Araujo, Caracas
- Darwin Ramirez, Maracaibo
- and others in training or just starting to work with us on a probationary basis.
Plus we have Gabriel and Constantin in Madrid, as well as several more people in Medellín who work full- or part-time on our Venezuela projects.
Dash Aid: A Free Market in Philanthropy for Venezuela
People in Venezuela are in trouble. People outside Venezuela want to help. Charitable organizations can’t operate in Venezuela. People need decentralized electricity generation, water purification, food production, schools and much more. The 4 million Venezuelan expats outside of the country can only remit so much wealth home so fast, and most of that is pointed at bare survival. And it is falling short.
The tide will turn soon in Venezuela, and a new liberty-friendly regime will take its place. Dash is ready to help rebuild Venezuela in a way no one else can, or will.
Enter Dash Aid.
- Anyone can request help via DashAid.org.
- Anyone can give help via DashAid.org.
- The only way to give help on DashAid.org is by sending Dash to people.
- A request for help consists of a video, a twitter handle and a Dash address.
- All Dash gifts via DashAid.org are direct and are in no way intermediated whatsoever.
Dash Aid is a free market in philanthropy. I’m not picking recipients. I’m not receiving Dash and then sending it out. Neither senders nor receivers need ask for permission to participate.
People who want to give via Dash Aid have to buy Dash. It is simply the best way to do it, not to mention the easiest! People who receive aid will need to spend their Dash. Or they can sell it to people in Venezuela who want Dash, thus creating more Dash liquidity in the country.
The DashAid.org website was coded by Rion Gull with design help from Ash Francis. Dash Aid exists thanks to the ideas and help of JohnSnow (discord), Solarguy and Edward Stoever of Dash.red. I identified the vision for Dash Aid and funded its creation. JohnSnow was essential in the conception of Dash Aid. I believe Rion Gull came up with the name.
Dash Aid is very close to being in an MVP stage, and this constitutes just a pre-announcement. Right now it only has sample content. We still need to produce the media that teaches donors how to buy Dash and recipients how to spend it. The Dash Latam Venezuela team is very excited to market this and fill it up with requests. We will need your help to bring in the donors and get it on CNN.
No Easier Way to Accept Dash Anywhere
The Paga Con Dash point of sale software (POS) is the absolute easiest way for anyone anywhere to accept Dash, and has the lowest barrier to entry. There is nothing to install, no account to create. It is non-custodial. You don’t have to trust us. It is just a webpage.
The Paga Con Dash POS (try it out at https://pos.pagacondash.com) is in use across Latin America by Dash merchants to accept Dash payments rapidly, securely and with confidence, both in stores and on the street, for all kinds of products. It is a reality. Here is a video about that, filmed in Caracas Venezuela.
By the way, the Paga Con Dash POS is hosted for global reliability at Amazon Web Services. It is backed by the new Dash Retail global exchange rate server. This POS was originally coded by Kodaxx as SparkPOS, which was funded by the DAO. It is Dash-exclusive. Ash Francis’s Dash Retail proposal took it to the next level.
You can even pay when there is no electricity by using the CoinTigo SMS wallet (based in Venezuela), as you can see below. This integration work was completed by Ash Francis and Alex Cox of as part of the Dash Retail proposal.
New Dash Merchants in Venezuela
Here is a selection of photos taken by our trained and qualified Dash representatives in Venezuela of new merchants they have affiliated. In some cases, a few may be merchants we recovered who had previously accepted Dash and we managed to bring them back.
Here are some stats on our work in Venezuela so far on the new merchants front. We’ve visited almost 1,200 merchants and affiliated 103, 59 of which are basic necessities merchants, which practically did not exist for Dash spenders in Venezuela before we started.
Verified Dash Merchants in Venezuela
Our standard verification procedure is to visit the merchant for a second time after their affiliation and provide a printed QR code (hablador). This requires that we get the habladors (blue triangle things) into Venezuela, which is never easy and frequently requires putting people at risk, and then finding adhesive paper and printing them out properly. To verify merchants, we visit them. We ensure we have their contact info, we ensure they have backed up their passphrase, and we install the Paga Con Dash POS, among other things. Here are some photos from this activity.
Here are some stats on our work in Venezuela so far on the verifying DiscoverDash-listed Venezuela merchants front. We’ve visited almost 200 DiscoverDash-listed merchants and verified 70. We were unable to find 90. Only 4 no longer wish to accept Dash and we had to do some work here to keep this number that low. We’ve also filled 105 in-person support requests at Dash merchants, support that no one else can or will offer to our Dash merchants in Venezuela.
Here is a bonus video of Freddy doing some early verifications before we were even funded for this.
Combo Remittances
Finding remittance beneficiaries in Venezuela places they can reliably spend Dash has been quite challenging. Also, even people who have money in hand can not always find where to spend it on what they need in Venezuela today.
So we invented combo remittances.
With combo remittances, people in Medellín, Madrid and other parts of the world can buy Dash and immediately use it to buy the products their family members need, and cause those products to be delivered directly to their family members.
We have been building alliances with new basic necessities merchants in Venezuela for months, directly connecting our on-the-ground merchant adoption work with our combo remittance sales network. Here are our current 38 combo remittance options. All of these are for sale right now, payable in Dash, and available to be delivered within certain regions of Venezuela.
Bonus video of Freddy Rauseo of Dash Latam accompanying the delivery of a combo to a beneficiary.
I Bought this with Dash in Venezuela
Dash Latam is the project that created the first and only videos of people buying basic necessities items with Dash in Venezuela. Here are those videos, which we worked very hard to create before we even had a Venezuela proposal and with our own funds. Here is a playlist with 18 videos proving to dubious remittance senders that you can actually buy basic necessities with Dash in Venezuela.
Cross Border Food Shopping with Dash
Cúcuta, Colombia is right across the border from San Cristóbal, Venezuela. Dash Latam has teams in both cities. As many as 50,000 people, yes, that number is right, cross the bridge from Venezuela into Cúcuta every day to migrate and to shop. We are teaching these shoppers how to get Dash in Venezuela, bring it across the border (without getting robbed by the border guards) and spend it for food and other basic necessities at our more than 80 Dash merchants in Cúcuta. Here are some videos about that:
Straight Talk
Let’s be frank. No one has ever done this much evidenced work in Venezuela for Dash before for. Only in Colombia have we done more. No other cryptocurrency adoption project anywhere for any coin that I am aware of has done anything even near all of this. Do correct me if I am wrong.
Dash Latam is the pioneer globally in crypto mass adoption and we are moving towards big things and concrete results in Venezuela, among other places. We need regular funding to do this. Our team members are Venezuelans, and as such are subject to all the same vicissitudes of hyper-inflationary life as any other Venezuelan. Costs rise, critical products become unavailable. Children need to eat. Children get sick.
We can not expect to retain effective people if we do not take effective care of them by paying them on time and providing them the tools they need to do the job at hand.
Please support our work. Here is our proposal. Vote for it. Ask others to vote for it. Follow our work and give us feedback. We are Dash’s humble servants but we can not serve Dash without resources.
