Welcome!

This is an informational proposal to encourage the entire Dash community to self-custody (take coins off of exchanges), start using Dash as money in as many ways as possible, and to educate on the best way to do this. We’re also highlighting a self-custody promotion we’re running in September.

This proposal runs for two months in order to stay visible as an active proposal for the entirety of September.

(skip to the bottom for links)

Why the self-custody push?

We’re pushing for self-custody because it will help improve Dash’s market price.

There is considerable evidence that most centralized exchanges operate on a fractional reserve basis. Especially with a lower volume/speculation coin like Dash, exchanges need very little Dash liquidity on-hand to service the few customer withdrawals they experience. Buying of Dash therefore doesn’t translate to higher prices, since customers are essentially buying paper Dash. This also leads to more opportunities for price manipulation, wash trading, and so on. Withdrawing from exchanges forces them to source actual Dash, driving up the price as they have to buy Dash to pay out to customers. As this drives the price up, trading volume can also be expected to increase, further necessitating on-hand liquidity, and so on.

Since being removed from many major exchanges, Monero’s price has performed well compared to much of the market (up until the Qubic mining attack). The Bitcoin Cash community has launched several major “bank runs” to remove coins from exchanges. Every time there has been a noticeable correlation in price performance. In both of these cases, Bitcoin Cash and Monero withdrawals have been temporarily suspended during these runs. We’re essentially attempting to replicate this success, and then some.

Additionally, of course, Dash’s values center around self-custody and sovereignty, and its usability features really shine over other blockchains in a self-custody environment (as opposed to on an exchange where there’s no difference between assets). Even if this push fails to move the price, we still benefit from having Dash used as it was intended, and put extra activity on the blockchain.

Why spend as money?

Using Dash instead of fiat currency as money is obviously the whole point of Dash to begin with. But it can also significantly impact the Dash price.

First, using Dash as spending money simply necessitates owning more Dash. More people needing more Dash makes it scarce, which drives the price up. For example, if 1 million people all use Dash as their checking account and keep $2,000 worth on-hand at all times, the market cap of Dash needs to be at least $2 billion in order to accommodate those users. Price improvement caused by this will also lead to more people using Dash for savings, which further increases this number, growing the price.

Second, more Dash usage leads to this same effect on exchanges and service providers, where they must now keep more liquidity on-hand in order to service this newly-increased volume. And finally, of course, extra volume and usage on the Dash network leads to more fee revenue for masternodes and EvoNodes, making it more attractive to run one, thereby increasing buying of Dash for investment purposes, increasing the price.

Higher usage volume also makes my job easier. The more usage and volume Dash has, the easier it is to convince services to add Dash as an option. Many new wallets, exchanges, etc. ask for an integration fee for Dash because they anticipate losing money in the short term. A realistic promise of higher usage is a currency I can use to pay them instead.

To read more about ways we can positively impact the Dash price outside of increasing speculation, please read this document.

The self-custody promo

Over the month of September we’re running a promotion to encourage users to self-custody Dash. To enter for a chance to win a Dash prize, buy some Dash, withdraw it from an exchange to self-custody, post about it on social media, and tag the official Dash account.

Every week after the first we will be co-promoting with a different partner who will also be offering giveaway prizes, so keep an eye out on social media for announcements. We will also post them here.

How to use Dash as money today

Here are some useful links for using Dash as money today:

Bill pay

Spritz: US

Swapin: EU

Zypto: US, MX, etc.


Everyday spending

DashSpend (inside the DashPay wallet): US for now

Bitrefill: entire world

Zypto: global


Travel

Travala

Alternative Airlines


Privacy services

Nym VPN:

MeileVPN:


DEX swap

LeoDEX: