Pre-Proposal: DASH TEXT - SMS Wallets for Everyone (Exclusively for Dash) - FIRST STAGE VENEZUELA

[LorenzoRey]

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Hello Dash Community! We are excited to introduce you the pre-proposal for Dash Text - The first SMS wallet service exclusively for Dash!

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Important Links: Proposal Document https://goo.gl/LAhhJX

1- MAIN OBJECTIVE:
Dash Text will be the first service to offer Dash Wallets over SMS, it is the fastest and easiest way to receive Dash, and it is one of the most practical applications for people, specially in developing countries where smartphone access and internet access is limited. Our goal is to provide easy access to Dash for everyone.

2- THE PROBLEM and VALIDATION:
Only around 40% of people in Venezuela have smartphones, this means that there are still millions of people who can't use Dash even if they wanted to. We plan to change that. Source: https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-50-countries-by-smartphone-penetration-and-users/

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3- THE SOLUTION:
An SMS Wallet service that allows anyone to create and manage a fully functional Dash Wallet only by texting, no need for registration, or downloads, or any hassles, just text and start Dashing, no internet connection required !

4- WHO ARE WE:

Lorenzo Rey: Project Lead. I am an Electronic Engineer, CTO of Dash Help (Support Center) and Dash Merchant - Massive Adoption Program. I am also a spokesperson for Dash in Venezuela and Latin America, I've been the speaker in Dash Caracas conferences, in Dash Youth conferences and presentations, and in events such as the Crypto Latin Fest. I've worked with Rodrigo from Dash Brasil, and with Sam Barbosa, Developer of the Dash Core Team. I've also been an advisor for many other projects such as Dash Trip, Dash Youth, Agrocognitive, and more. DASH Forum: LorenzoRey, Telegram: LorenzoRey, Discord: LorenzoReyC Ig: LorenzoReyC Tw: LorenzoReyC


Alejandro Echeverría: Mechanical Engineer, co-founder of Dash Help - Support Center and Dash Merchant Venezuela. He is also advisor for some teams in the Dash Community like Dash Argentina and Dash Youth Venezuela. Dedicated himself to make profitable business models (Easymed, TuGruero- https://tugruero.io/, Ctrl+C-USB). DASH Forum/Discord: AlejandroE. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-echeverrria-b739b1101/).

Carlos Echeverria: He´s got a degree in Business Administration from UNIMET (Universidad Metropolitana) in Caracas, Venezuela. He has been in charge of the finance and administration of all above companies as equal business asociated. (Ig: carlosjem1993. Tw: carlosjem. DASH Forum/Discord: carlosjem/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-echeverria-081a57a9/).

Carlos Heinze: Production engineer from USB (Universidad Simon Bolivar) in Caracas, Venezuela. He has been in charge of the operations of customer service, call center support and logistic of all above companies as equal business asociate. (Ig/Tw: @nachoheinze. DASH Forum: Carlos Heinze. Discord: CarlosH, Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-heinze-43483ab8/).

5- BUDGET:

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6- ALLIES:

We will work in alliance with some Venezuelans and non-Venezuelans teams that have been funded by the Dash treasury, in this way we will work aligned and coordinated to achieve the same goal: massive adoption of Dash in Venezuela. Following are the allies:

- Dash Help - Support Center: led by Alejandro Echeverría (AlejandroE). Dash Help is the first support center of Dash (and any cryptocurrency) in the world. Prividing assistance to 6 countries already via phone calls, chat, and ticket support. All the assistance and problem solving about Dash Text will be channeled thru Dash Help.
-Dash Merchant Venezuela: led by Alejandro Echeverria (AlejandroE). Dash Merchant Venezuela is a massive adoption program for merchants to accept Dash as payment method for their products and services. We will help small merchants who don't have PCs or Smartphones so they can accept Dash as payment with our SMS Wallet service.
-Dash Youth: led by Santos Bermudez (@Santos Bermúdez Ruiz). Dash Youth Venezuela is an organization focused on spreading knowledge about cryptocurrencies and the DASH Network by giving a series of lectures for students of Middle Schools and Universities. We will work with them teaching students on how the can receive and send Dash without internet connection or smartphones.

Contact Information:

Email Address: [email protected]
Website: www.dashtext.com

Social Networks:
-Facebook: Dash Text
-Instagram: @dashtext
-Twitter: @dash_text

 

[GrandMasterDash]

It seems to me, the real problem is that 60% of Venezuelans don't have a smart phone, yet. Surely, cash by text is a short term fix to what is inevitable, the mass adoption of smart phones. Crypto is liberating but a smart phone more so. A smart phone can, in theory, protect from SIM / IMEA hijacking (re: Signal's registration lock pin). The downside risk of fraud / cloning compared to the upside of more smart phones with better privacy; I would vote no.

Would it not be better to subsidize the sale of smart phones with the dash wallet pre-installed plus required seminar / workshop attendance?

 

[jesccs]

Excellent initiative @LorenzoRey , with this service, transactions with Dash can be done everywhere. Will be great know more technical details to understand better any risk and advantages. For AgroCognitive project it would be a great value to be able to count on this service for some clients that eventually may suffer from intermittence in the mobile data service in the field. Good luck!

 

[LorenzoRey]

It seems to me, the real problem is that 60% of Venezuelans don't have a smart phone, yet. Surely, cash by text is a short term fix to what is inevitable, the mass adoption of smart phones. Crypto is liberating but a smart phone more so. A smart phone can, in theory, protect from SIM / IMEA hijacking (re: Signal's registration lock pin). The downside risk of fraud / cloning compared to the upside of more smart phones with better privacy; I would vote no.

Would it not be better to subsidize the sale of smart phones with the dash wallet pre-installed plus required seminar / workshop attendance?

Hello GrandMasterDash! Thank you so much for your comment, what you say is an ideal scenario, getting subsidized smartphones with pre-installed wallets to millions of users, but there are two main problems: the first problem is cost, getting subsidized smartphones to millions of users translates to millions in cost, but second, due to high levels of crime, a lot of people in Venezuela still carry a dumb phone (we call it the "perolito" here) even tho they do have a smartphone as well. The reason for this is that people are afraid to pull out their smartphone in many places out of fear of getting mugged, so they use their "perolito" in this places, according to this, Dash Text is ideal to pay for things like public transportation, or different types of merchants in the street.

We completely support actions to increase smartphone penetration, and this proposal is definitely not opposing that, it just provides the ability to use Dash instantly to millions of users who use their dumb phones everyday, at a very very low cost. Im glad that you touched the subject of security as well, because the idea of this proposal is not that people store the majority of their funds in these SMS wallets, because it would be similar to storing all your funds in an exchange, we will be teaching people and reminding people that they should have the majority of their funds in more secure wallets like the Dash Core wallet for PC at home. And we will teach them how to fund their Dash Text wallets from their main wallets, with relatively low amounts, that allows them to pay for things like food or public transportation in the streets.

Again thank you so much for your feedback, we hope to gain your support!

-Lorenzo Rey

 

[LorenzoRey]

Excellent initiative @LorenzoRey , with this service, transactions with Dash can be done everywhere. Will be great know more technical details to understand better any risk and advantages. For AgroCognitive project it would be a great value to be able to count on this service for some clients that eventually may suffer from intermittence in the mobile data service in the field. Good luck!

Hello Javier, thanks for your support, Dash Text is private and secure for casual use. Will love to share more technical details once it is fully developed, however, they are meant to be used for microtransactions and not to hold all your funds. And as you said, this is gonna help a lot of the users you and your team are targetting.

-Lorenzo Rey

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Hello GrandMasterDash! Thank you so much for your comment, what you say is an ideal scenario, getting subsidized smartphones with pre-installed wallets to millions of users, but there are two main problems: the first problem is cost, getting subsidized smartphones to millions of users translates to millions in cost, but second, due to high levels of crime, a lot of people in Venezuela still carry a dumb phone (we call it the "perolito" here) even tho they do have a smartphone as well. The reason for this is that people are afraid to pull out their smartphone in many places out of fear of getting mugged, so they use their "perolito" in this places, according to this, Dash Text is ideal to pay for things like public transportation, or different types of merchants in the street.

We completely support actions to increase smartphone penetration, and this proposal is definitely not opposing that, it just provides the ability to use Dash instantly to millions of users who use their dumb phones everyday, at a very very low cost. Im glad that you touched the subject of security as well, because the idea of this proposal is not that people store the majority of their funds in these SMS wallets, because it would be similar to storing all your funds in an exchange, we will be teaching people and reminding people that they should have the majority of their funds in more secure wallets like the Dash Core wallet for PC at home. And we will teach them how to fund their Dash Text wallets from their main wallets, with relatively low amounts, that allows them to pay for things like food or public transportation in the streets.

Again thank you so much for your feedback, we hope to gain your support!

-Lorenzo Rey

I understand. Can you tell me, among the 40% that do have a smartphone, what is the typical spec and price? A quick glance at amazon shows me a "NUU Mobile NU2S 4.5" qHD Android Lollipop 4G Smartphone" at US$50. I'm sure there is cheaper elsewhere. A 20% subsidy would put a dash smartphone into 1000 hands

 

[Juan Baró]

in th video says is already running?
i want to replicate it in Spain so i want to participate here

 

[Name3]

Dash Venezuela is killing it, we are lucky to have you guys doing such great work there.

 

[LorenzoRey]

in th video says is already running?
i want to replicate it in Spain so i want to participate here

The prototype is already working, you can try it out in Venezuela however it is a bit slow because it is hosted on a PC at the moment, we want to bring this functionality to as many countries as possible, however that brings costs, we want to focus on the countries that need it the most first, but we are happy to see people wanting to participate, we can talk in private about finding a reliable SMS provider in Spain so we can launch the service there in the future

 

[LorenzoRey]

Dash Venezuela is killing it, we are lucky to have you guys doing such great work there.

Hello Name3 thanks for your comment, however we are not "Dash Venezuela" maybe you meant "Dash teams in Venezuela are killing it" haha, Dash Venezuela are friends of ours and we have collaborated a lot, but the Venezuelan projects work in a descentralized way towards the same goal. Thanks for your comment !

-Lorenzo Rey

 

[Juan Baró]

The prototype is already working, you can try it out in Venezuela however it is a bit slow because it is hosted on a PC at the moment, we want to bring this functionality to as many countries as possible, however that brings costs, we want to focus on the countries that need it the most first, but we are happy to see people wanting to participate, we can talk in private about finding a reliable SMS provider in Spain so we can launch the service there in the future

Excelent bro !

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

Hello Name3 thanks for your comment, however we are not "Dash Venezuela" maybe you meant "Dash teams in Venezuela are killing it" haha, Dash Venezuela are friends of ours and we have collaborated a lot, but the Venezuelan projects work in a descentralized way towards the same goal. Thanks for your comment !

-Lorenzo Rey

I like this. It's great to have teams all around the world contributing their strengths to build Dash Nation. I look forward to the results of this proposal.

 

[LorenzoRey]

I like this. It's great to have teams all around the world contributing their strengths to build Dash Nation. I look forward to the results of this proposal.

Thanks you so much for your comment Tao! We will not disappoint

-Lorenzo Rey

 

[LorenzoRey]

I understand. Can you tell me, among the 40% that do have a smartphone, what is the typical spec and price? A quick glance at amazon shows me a "NUU Mobile NU2S 4.5" qHD Android Lollipop 4G Smartphone" at US$50. I'm sure there is cheaper elsewhere. A 20% subsidy would put a dash smartphone into 1000 hands

The typical spec and price is around that, but most of those phones are old phones, not brand new 50$ phones, but 3-6 year old phones, they do not handle the Dash Wallets well, they have a lot of syncronization issues and storage issues, we deal with this issues everyday at Dash Help - Support Center. you need at least 100$ phones to get really reliable functionality with the App Wallets. Even if you could get 1000 people these phones, and assuming those phones work well with the wallets, 1000 is still not much people compared to the amount of potential users you can get with Dash Text, and all the new uses cases you provide by allowing people to pay with their dumb phones in the insecure streets and internet dead zones of this country.

-Lorenzo Rey

 

[dashameter]

Lorenzo

The typical spec and price is around that, but most of those phones are old phones, not brand new 50$ phones, but 3-6 year old phones, they do not handle the Dash Wallets well, they have a lot of syncronization issues and storage issues, we deal with this issues everyday at Dash Help - Support Center. you need at least 100$ phones to get really reliable functionality with the App Wallets. Even if you could get 1000 people these phones, and assuming those phones work well with the wallets, 1000 is still not much people compared to the amount of potential users you can get with Dash Text, and all the new uses cases you provide by allowing people to pay with their dumb phones in the insecure streets and internet dead zones of this country.

-Lorenzo Rey

This proposal is what I've been waiting for, it is essential, thank you for executing it!

Here are a few points to consider, there was a text based wallet startup called 37 coins, it might be prudent to learn from their failure to not repeat the same mistakes, I can't post links here but if you google you will find the coindesk article, one of their issues was that they found sms delivery unreliable, hopefully this will not be an issue for you.

A question for your team is whether you need a money transmitter or banking licence for holding on to users funds?

Will users only be able to deposit and withdraw dash into the DashText wallet or do you have fiat conversion options so they can bridge that gap if they don't have fiat yet?

I'm excited when you extend to other countries so I can tip people in Dash using their phone number without needing them to download a wallet and write down the seed!

 

[Dash_Medellin]

excellent idea to facilitate payments. good job guys.

 

[Samuel Barbosa]

I really like the idea and the team behind it is very capable.

Does the popular mobile phone plans in Venezuela includes a good amount of SMS messages? Otherwise, what are the costs of sending SMS in Venezuela?
Will it have a holding limit and password? It worries me a little bit that phone numbers are exploitable, so it would be good to have holding limits, spending password and a way to recover funds through a website or something like this.

I think that a service like this can be very useful, but as it is less secure than mobile or desktop wallets it would be good to advertise it as an alternative option and instruct users to host their funds in their hardware/desktop/mobile wallets and use Dash Text as a spending wallet only.

 

[Arthyron]

Thanks for your pre-proposal. I think this is a fantastic idea that supports all the other initiatives in Venezuela. I too am also concerned about the associated costs of text messaging in utilizing this method as the primary way of sending Dash. It's a shame if we have to make Dash transactions more expensive in this instance when we've tried so hard on the protocol level to keep fees low, so finding some way to address added costs seems important. Perhaps you could contact cellular service providers about a possible partnership, where transmissions through your network are sent at a lower cost or subsidized in some way (i.e. like "toll free" telephone numbers)?

What kind of options would users of your service have for actually obtaining Dash in the first place? It's great that they would have the means to hold and send Dash, but how would they go about getting it in the first place, would it have to be sent from another user?

What network features would such users have access to (InstantSend, PrivateSend, etc)?

 

[LorenzoRey]

Lorenzo


This proposal is what I've been waiting for, it is essential, thank you for executing it!

Here are a few points to consider, there was a text based wallet startup called 37 coins, it might be prudent to learn from their failure to not repeat the same mistakes, I can't post links here but if you google you will find the coindesk article, one of their issues was that they found sms delivery unreliable, hopefully this will not be an issue for you.

A question for your team is whether you need a money transmitter or banking licence for holding on to users funds?

Will users only be able to deposit and withdraw dash into the DashText wallet or do you have fiat conversion options so they can bridge that gap if they don't have fiat yet?

I'm excited when you extend to other countries so I can tip people in Dash using their phone number without needing them to download a wallet and write down the seed!

Hello Dashameter! Thanks for your support, will definitely study the case of 37 coins.

-We do not need a banking license since we do not hold any funds.

-Users can easily deposit and withdraw their funds into and from any kind of Dash wallet, mobile, desktop, etc. Fiat convertion is not on the scope, we have another idea to do this in a better way, will be sharing soon.

-We hope Dash Text can be present in as many countries as possible

Thanks again
-Lorenzo Rey

 

[LorenzoRey]

I really like the idea and the team behind it is very capable.

Does the popular mobile phone plans in Venezuela includes a good amount of SMS messages? Otherwise, what are the costs of sending SMS in Venezuela?
Will it have a holding limit and password? It worries me a little bit that phone numbers are exploitable, so it would be good to have holding limits, spending password and a way to recover funds through a website or something like this.

I think that a service like this can be very useful, but as it is less secure than mobile or desktop wallets it would be good to advertise it as an alternative option and instruct users to host their funds in their hardware/desktop/mobile wallets and use Dash Text as a spending wallet only.

Hello Sam! Always a pleasure talking to you!

Yes, most basic phone plans give you around 500 to 1000 SMS per month, and additional cost is 30 VEF per sms, which is (funnily enough) less than the Dash Network fee haha.

Holding limits were amongst the first things we thought about, since we will always be promoting these wallets for casual use, not for storing big amounts, however would love to talk to you in private about this, since we cannot stop someone from sending X amount to his Dash Text wallet, the system would need to send the change (difference between what the person sent minus the holding limit) back to the sender.

We are implementing a 2FA, you will receive a code when trying to send and you have to type it to confirm, this might be better than a password but we'll re evaluate it, because in any case, both the password or the 2FA code will still be visible in the person's SMS conversation.

Lastly, we completely agree, these are wallets for casual use only and to provide an opportunity to use Dash for people with no smartphone or reliable data, we will be very clear about it. And will always advice people not to use them as primary wallets.

Thank you so much for your feedback Sam, see you soon!

- Lorenzo Rey