CryptoRefills, a gift card/voucher for cryptocurrency website, has recently integrated Dash thanks to the work of Dash Next and will enable consumers to spend at many more locations via gift cards and vouchers purchased with Dash.
CryptoRefills gives consumers from 180 countries and 600 mobile service providers the ability to purchase mobile top ups and consumers from many more countries the option to buy gift cards for music/video streaming, games/apps and hotel stays and flights all available to be purchased in Dash. Felix Mago, Co-Founder of Dash NEXT and Dash Thailand highlighted in the press release how the integration furthers mass adoption since it greatly expands the number of merchants where consumers can spend Dash.
“This partnership is yet another milestone for mass adoption of Dash as it provides our users a huge variety of shopping options all around the world.”
CryptoRefills’ founder, Massimiliano Silenzi, reiterated the same point that they want to “offer a great option for fast and cheap crypto payment experience, as well as welcome a lively community of crypto shoppers”. The Dash integration meshes well with their overall goals since it will enable individuals to quickly and inexpensively purchase gift cards.
“We are very focused on providing our users with a great payment user experience. As we all know there are several barriers when it comes to crypto. Dash is a very good option for transaction speed and fees when paying with crypto. Furthermore, we believe the Dash community to be very interested in using Dash as a means of payment and for shopping. The use of crypto for every day needs is the very foundation of our business model.”
Expanding the market reach of cryptocurrencies with complimentary services
A major barrier to wider adoption of cryptocurrencies is getting large merchant such as Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Google, AT&T, Comcast, other mobile companies, and more to adopt cryptocurrency payments since these companies face large switching costs, large regulatory costs, and do not have a large concern about increasing their customer base at an incremental level. Convincing local merchants to accept Dash and other cryptocurrencies at their point of sale is relatively less difficult since there are often only a few key stakeholders rather than hundreds or thousands and they can directly see the benefits of increasing their customer base by an incremental amount. Gift cards/vouchers for major merchants help bridge the adoption gap as an economic complimentary good to direct Dash spending at merchants’ POS systems.
Dash pushes to achieve wider adoption within the constraints of reality
The addition of gift card services is particularly useful for Dash due to instant confirmations, facilitating their use as a payment option in a point-of-sale environment. The fast speed and inexpensiveness of Dash makes it feasible and economical to wait until the last minute in-store, find out the final bill, and then buy that exact amount on the gift card, and use that as final merchant payment.
Bitrefill is one of those gift card and mobile top up companies that sells their global products for Dash and cryptocurrency. Plus, as a promotion, Dash was able to fund a 10% discount for those buying with Dash at the beginning of the integration. Additionally, Bitrefill was able to make it even easier for their customers to purchase gift cards and mobile top ups by partnering with Edge wallet to be directly integrated into the wallet. Bitrefill also partnered with Dash Text to lower prices to sell at-cost to help Venezuelans circumvent the blackouts that plagued the country. Coincards.ca is another gift card provider in Canada. Then eGifter was able to integrate Dash thanks to AnyPay POS, and not too long after, integrate the eGifter platform directly into the main Dash website including a Dash-back program that ranges from a few percent back to 9.5% back. Each of these gift card providers helps Dash gradually expand its usage locations and gives its user base more locations to spend Dash in the pursuit of eventual becoming everyday digital cash.
