Dash Latam Mass Adoption Marathon & Expansion into Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Haiti, Buenos Aires

[George Donnelly]

Hi. We're Eugenia Alcalá of Dash Venezuela, Rodrigo Ambrissi of Dash Brasil, Ángel Arri of Dash Argentina and George Donnelly of Dash Colombia.

We want to issue a declaration of independence for Dash this July 4th.

• Price and brand independence from other cryptocurrencies for Dash.
• Independence from corrupt money for the people of Latin America.

We know that Dash is the number one cryptocurrency. With 20,000 fast Dash transactions per day secured by 1.6 peta hashes of mining power. With governance that actually works and a self-funding treasury of USD$1.5 million per month, even in the middle of a crypto downturn. With our coming Evolution.

But the world doesn’t know about this. The world underestimates Dash. The world doesn’t know what Dash is.

We’re going to change that.

We’re Dash Latam, the future of Dash in a region where the informal economy and unbanked small businesses dominate.

A region that, unlike Africa, boasts plentiful and high-quality internet and electrical infrastructure. A region that, unlike Asia, has 26 weak governments, none with the power to stop the mass adoption of Dash. A region with 400 million people who speak the same language, Spanish. And another 200 million Portuguese speakers.

We will expand the Dash identity, branding it as the digital cash that Latin America is adopting.

Today, not in an imagined future.

We will grab the attention of investors, merchants, users, and the media. We’ll show off Dash’s impressive results in Latin America so far. We’ll hold a mass adoption marathon in Uruguay, demonstrating Dash’s unique ability to take a country from near-zero Dash use to an important center of Dash adoption in just one week.

You get:

• An expanded and unforgettable Dash identity as the undisputed leader in digital cash in Latin America.
• A new national Dash promotion and marketing project: Dash Uruguay.
• 50 new Dash merchants in the capital, Montevideo.
• A major media event, with international media coverage that positions Dash as the Latin American leader.
• A documentary that shows off Dash’s concrete results in Latin America.
• Eugenia Alcalá presenting Dash Venezuela’s unmatched Dash mass adoption results to the world.
• And much more.

Dash is digital cash that works right now. No other crypto can say that. No other crypto has Dash’s marketing and mass adoption power.

That’s what we’re showing the world.

Let's declare Dash's independence this July 4th.

Can we count on your support?

Proposal

Download our full proposal [PDF] for all the details.

O bajar la versión en Español [PDF] de nuestra propuesta.

Budget
Assumes 1 Dash = $240.

Updates

• 4 July. Dash Force News covered some of our recent work building stronger Dash projects in Latin America: Latin American Leadership Forum Hashes Out Expansion Strategies

 

[Unstoppable]

I like the idea. Latam will undoubtedly prove to lead the way in actual adoption of crypto, Dash in particular, but it appears you expect to fly first class? There is definitely significant fluff in this budget.
Please redo the budget with more realistic numbers.

 

[JZA]

Not sure if the timing is off since last year in August/September it was the DASH Global Conference in London.

 

[Dash_Medellin]

one thing is to do an event in Uruguay and another that you call yourself Dash latam.

dash latam is much bigger and includes more people and communities from Colombia and Mexico that you (george donelly) insist on believing that we do not exist

 

[ec1warc1]

regarding the "Fly first class" comment from @Unstoppable - the prices for flights might be lowered a little. They are not first class rates though. A quick look on copa.com, you can get a round trip ticket from Caracas to Montevideo for under a little under 900 USD - no frills, no insurance, no transportation to and from the airport - just a seat on a plane.

 

[Juan Baró]

one thing is to do an event in Uruguay and another that you call yourself Dash latam.

dash latam is much bigger and includes more people and communities from Colombia and Mexico that you (george donelly) insist on believing that we do not exist

!

 

[ec1warc1]

call yourself Dash latam

The truth is no one has a monopoly or rightful claim on any name such as "Dash Medellin" "Dash Latam" "Dash LatinoAmerica" "Dash Venezuela". You are free to use the name you want and others may use the same name if they so desire. As of now, the only method to claim a name is registering a domain such as "DashVenezuela.org", or registering a name on Dash.org/forum, or similarly in Twitter or Facebook. But, those claims do not prevent others from using the same or similar name. There is no legal protection in a decentralized community.

dash latam is much bigger and includes more people and communities from Colombia and Mexico that you (george donelly) insist on believing that we do not exist

George Donnely has no obligation to include you in his proposals, just as you have no obligation to include George in your proposals.

 

[ec1warc1]

Few in the Dash community have produced more for Dash than the people who are involved in this proposal:

• Eugenia: hundreds of businesses accpeting Dash in Venezuela thanks to her efforts. Thousands of people in the Dash Nation today that would not be here if not for her.
• Angel, Eduardo, and Adrian: Dozens of businesses accepting Dash in the province of Cordoba, Argentina thanks to them, hundreds of new Dash Nation members.
• George Donnely: in just one month, many new businesses accepting Dash in Medellin, and hundreds of new Dash Nation members.
• Rodrigo: Hundreds of quality interviews at events accross the world.

And yet, we see "NO" votes and discouraging comments. Has anyone left any constructive feedback here for such negativity?
I think this preproposal may be overpriced, but getting feedback on price is one of the main reasons for presenting it here.
The idea of sending Dash leaders to Uruguay for a conference is a good idea in itself. The fact that they will be doing promotion for Dash for an entire week in Montevideo makes it even better. Furthermore, these are individuals who have proven that they are capable and eager to promote Dash.
If anyone who has voted NO wants to explain why, please do so.

 

[George Donnelly]

Thank you everyone for sharing your feedback! I think all 6 of us are very hungry to receive feedback on this idea.

Re/ flights

For the prices of the flights, we used CheapAir.com as our reference, since they accept Dash. We are doing more research to find the best prices but please keep in mind we won't buy the tickets for another month, and prices will be higher then.

That said, we are working very hard to reduce our ask, including a negotiation we have with the organizers of the Uruguay Blockchain Summit. It looks like we might save as much as USD$3,000 after spending some time helping them understand the unique value Dash brings.

Re/ team

If there are more people who would like to join this proposal, please let us know! The door is wide open and we're laying out the welcome mat.

It's just the 6 of us so far on this proposal because we are the 6 who have been developing the idea, doing research, writing down the ideas, building the budget, etc.

Thanks again everybody for your feedback! Please give us more!

 

[dashameter]

Those some odd no votes might be meaningless, don't be discouraged.

Please include as many other countries and collaborators as possible. A strong latam presence is important, beautiful and synergistic, and please not at the expense of smaller countries, teams or less well known activists. Maybe include a little budget and then proof that you spent it to support bringing in folks from other countries that do now have a flashy presence here on the forum and the means to win a masternode proposal.

Keep on doing what you are doing, the Dash Network's success is built atop your hard work! Thank you!

Be transparent with your cost, link flights or screencaps of ticket prices when you quote those e.g. to silence the nay-sayers .. in time we'll get to the point with an increasing Dash price and more money in the budget where quoting prices for travel will not trigger as much hair splitting, just be sensitive to the current situation, while we are in this budget squeeze someone else is not getting funded if you win a proposal thus emotions might be a bit more involved than otherwise ..

 

[ec1warc1]

link flights or screencaps of ticket prices when you quote those e.g. to silence the nay-sayers

Excellent idea.

we used CheapAir.com as our reference, since they accept Dash

Another excellent idea that combines well with the first idea!

 

[George Donnelly]

Thanks @dashameter for the feedback! We are continuing on course with this project!

re/ inviting more people to participate

It was a huge bit of work just developing these ideas and doing the basic research to get to this point, not to mention writing it in both Spanish and English.

Now that we've finished that stage, we're going back and actively tracking people down to get them involved. I personally have reached out today to Dash leaders in Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay and Peru, among others, to see if they would like to get involved.

re/ flights

AR team flights (3) $1,200 (budgeted)

Eugenia flights $1,500 (budgeted)

George flights $1,500 (budgeted)

Rodrigo flights $1,800 (budgeted)

Yes, some of our budget figures for flights are a little higher than the options currently available on CheapAir.com. Why? (a) we have to add in ground transportation to and from airports. (b) between now and Aug 3 when our proposal could potentially receive payment, prices are likely to go up.

So we put an approximate, estimated figure in. But we will do everything we can to ensure we are as frugal as possible with DAO funds.

Side note: Ángel opened the first Dash wallets in Uruguay last night as part of this project!

Oh, and Dash Force News covered some of our recent work building stronger Dash projects in Latin America: Latin American Leadership Forum Hashes Out Expansion Strategies

 

[ec1warc1]

I recommend not combining different airlines if you can avoid it. If you use different airlines on the same trip and the first one arrives late, and you consequently miss your connection, you will be stuck in an airport and may have to buy another ticket. The best airline service for arriving on time and making connections in Latin America is Copa. The cheapest option is usually not the best.

 

[George Donnelly]

I recommend not combining different airlines if you can avoid it. If you use different airlines on the same trip and the first one arrives late, and you consequently miss your connection, you will be stuck in an airport and may have to buy another ticket. The best airline service for arriving on time and making connections in Latin America is Copa. The cheapest option is usually not the best.

Thanks. I got quotes for Eugenia and I and they come out less expensive via Copa.

$800 for Eugenia
$1,146 for me

We continue to research prices on all of our expenses in order to reduce our ask as much as possible.

 

[ec1warc1]

You cannot buy tickets with Dash on Copa.com - BUT you can search by airlines on cheapair.com and include only copa in a search. You should get a similar price and the same flights in that way.

 

[George Donnelly]

You cannot buy tickets with Dash on Copa.com - BUT you can search by airlines on cheapair.com and include only copa in a search. You should get a similar price and the same flights in that way.

Ah, I see. Awesome. We will figure that out, get updated quotes and incorporate the rest of our budget work into a budget update shortly. It looks like we're going to be able to reduce our ask a bit. Thanks!!

 

[dashameter]

The effort you go through for transparency is laudable, MNOs should take a keener look at other proposals that are funded in the millions that could easily shave off enough cost to fund e.g. this proposal here in its entirety.

Bitrefill seems to give 10% when paid in Dash, you can buy a flightgiftcard and then book the flights that way "paying in Dash" and saving some money if they still give the discount:

https://blog.bitrefill.com/buy-trav...n-uber-hotels-com-flights-hotels-d9ba9c019325

https://www.bitrefill.com/flightgif...medium&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=gc_travel

Of course not sure if they have the flights / airlines that are interesting to you but might be worth a try..

Thanks for the update on the first wallet install in Uruguay, the Latam team continues to amaze! I wonder if there is a way to anonymously track wallet installs and usage across countries to better understand adoption?

 

[George Donnelly]

Bitrefill seems to give 10% when paid in Dash, you can buy a flightgiftcard and then book the flights that way "paying in Dash" and saving some money if they still give the discount:

Oh, that's a great idea, thanks. I am looking into that right now!

Thanks for the update on the first wallet install in Uruguay, the Latam team continues to amaze! I wonder if there is a way to anonymously track wallet installs and usage across countries to better understand adoption?

Core has this information (via the App Store and Play Store) and I have been told they will sometimes provide it upon request.

 

[Arthyron]

Thank you for your pre-proposal. This seems like another great initiative from a team of proven contributors to the network. As usual, I will stress the current market value of Dash and the limited budget we have for funding proposals due to Core's funding strategy, so competition for remaining funding will be fierce. That being said, the only real questions I have about this proposal are:

1. What kind of numbers/turnout/reach will you be expecting with this initiative?
2. Are you in contact with local Dash affiliates in Uruguay, planning to establish/train new affiliates, etc? What's the plan there?
3. How are you getting the word out about this LatAm initiative, who will be your target audience?

 

[George Donnelly]

1. What kind of numbers/turnout/reach will you be expecting with this initiative?

We expect to:

• sign up 50 fully trained merchants in Uruguay and 10 in Buenos Aires.
• consult with and orient an additional 250 merchants in Uruguay and Buenos Aires. (Dash Uruguay and Dash Buenos Aires will continue the sales process with them.)
  
• open at least 400 wallets in Uruguay and 100 in Buenos Aires. (I expect we can easily open 1,000 wallets but given the tightness of the budget, we're only asking for 400 airdrops of USD$6.40 in Dash - we will probably have to reduce the airdrop value.)
  
• speak with at least 1,000 people on the streets of Uruguay and Buenos Aires and in meetups about Dash.
  
• identify, train and mentor 25 Dash leaders in Latin America across Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Haiti and Buenos Aires to the point where they're ready to sign up new merchants, hold effective meetups, distribute airdrops, compete for the Dash Force meetup prize, submit DashBoost proposals, and, ideally submit Treasury proposals that are well-planned, likely to provide important results to the DAO and are reasonably-priced. (We've identified 12 candidates so far.)
• reach 250 potential Dash leaders online with the opportunity to learn more about Dash and become involved in growing Dash in Latin America.
  
• reach 500 people at the Uruguay Blockchain Summit with our stand and Eugenia Alcalá's talk.
• reach 15 Uruguayan reporters, 50 crypto reporters and 10 international finance reporters with our Dash Latam Summit press conference, where we will impress the world with Dash's progress right now towards Dash mass adoption in Latin America, and our results in Uruguay and Buenos Aires that first week of September.
  
• reach at least 10,000 readers via press coverage of the Dash Latam Summit.
• get at least 5,000 collective views on videos we create around this proposal, which have varying audiences such as: new Dash merchants, new Dash users, new Dash leaders, the general public, reporters (both Spanish and English speakers) and investors.

2. Are you in contact with local Dash affiliates in Uruguay, planning to establish/train new affiliates, etc? What's the plan there?

There are no Dash affiliates in Uruguay at this time that we have been able to discover.

We started, some time ago, a process of reaching out to Uruguayan residents who have compatible interests, such as a general interest in crypto, entrepreneurship, liberty, etc., to identify multiple Uruguayan candidates that can take part in a Dash leadership training program. This way we can generate a whole group of trained people who can take their own course as they each individually or as a group see fit, and we aren't relying on just one individual.

We are gathering a group of suitable people from across Latin America to enter a kind of distance learning/mentoring program for how to effectively market Dash at the local level by signing up merchants, opening wallets and connecting the two. The curriculum is composed of the most successful tactics and techniques in use today in Venezuela, Argentina and Colombia.

The goal is to take these new Dash leaders from zero to a complete beginner's knowledge of crypto, Dash and effective, low-cost, merchant-centric Dash marketing, and help them develop successful Dash marketing projects that can compete for community funding, so that Dash is growing across all of Latin America simultaneously.

So far, we have individuals joining the course from Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Haiti, Ecuador and Mexico. We are constantly reaching out to look for more people to join the training course.

3. How are you getting the word out about this LatAm initiative, who will be your target audience?

We have a few target audiences:

• users and merchants in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.
• potential Dash leaders who can enter the training course.
• attendees of the Uruguay Blockchain Summit 2018.
• members of the public in Uruguay, Latin America and the world who are interested in crypto, finance and economics.

The most important audiences are the users and merchants in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.

We're using a low-cost, merchant-centric strategy and are targeting businesses that are under-banked or not banked at all, that do business primarily in cash and where we are likely to find the owner working in the business.

This audience is generally hungry for opportunity but is not to be found easily online, so we will be walking the streets of Montevideo and Buenos Aires speaking with these merchants one-on-one, providing them with impromptu short Dash talks, Dash wallet training, marketing materials and a persuasive sales pitch to join the Dash network by accepting Dash as a form of payment.

With selected merchants, we will hold promotions at their store where we will invite members of the public to come in, receive short Dash talks and wallet training, open Dash wallets, receive small Dash airdrops and spend some of their Dash at the hosting merchant right then and there.

In this way, we immediately show the utility of Dash for the merchant (we brought him new business) and for the user (he got some training, some Dash and a chance to spend it immediately).

We'll leverage these merchants' own existing commercial and word-of-mouth networks, as well as local foot traffic, to find suitable people to open Dash wallets who know the merchant or at least are in a position to conveniently return and continue spending Dash there.

So we will start with merchants, and through the merchants we will find the users. Both the merchants and the users will help us get new merchants (because they love the Dash experience), and thus the process becomes self-growing.

An important part of this, in order to build confidence, is to provide a buyback guarantee. When the merchant receives Dash, they may want to hold just some of it. They may want or even need to convert it into fiat. So we will offer the buyback guarantee to ensure they can do that. In this way, we provide a convenient exchange service until such time as the market recognizes the demand for Dash exchange services and new providers enter the market.

On day 1 in Uruguay, we will trial merchant adoption efforts in a few different neighborhoods of Montevideo, then select the one where we had the greatest success and build a network of merchants in that area that can serve as a kind of Dash neighborhood. This merchant concentration strategy adds another layer of utility, because when we have 20 merchants in a given area, we can hold a merchant fair, and new Dash users then have a wide selection of merchants with which they can spend their Dash. Word of mouth can become viral at this point, and social proof puts Dash on everyone's mind, leading new merchants to come to us.

This low-cost, merchant-centric strategy is not glamorous. It's a lot of repetitive street work. But it works because we go to the merchants and users with concrete value/connection, rather than waiting for them to come to us (such as with a meetup).

Thanks Arthyron for your questions! We're thrilled to receive more questions.