Uphold, the popular cryptocurrency exchange that has facilitated over $5 billion USD of transactions, has now been added to Dash’s official iOS wallet, following the removal of the Dash withdrawal fee from the platform.
Developed by Dash Core Group, the “official” iOS Dash wallet now has Uphold directly integrated into the app, enabling consumers to easily access the Uphold platform straight from the wallet and easily send money back and forth between the two, including using Uphold to move between Dash and fiat. This provides easy access to both buy and sell Dash all from the same platform as used for regular transactions. Uphold’s CEO, Robin O’Connell, highlighted Dash and Uphold’s long partnership and how it benefits consumers:
“Dash has been a long time partner of Uphold and we work closely with them to optimize usability. These updates to our integration make it easier and less expensive for users to pay with Dash in real-world scenarios, increasing Dash’s usability and streamlining the user experience”
This also comes soon after Uphold eliminated their $2.99 flat-rate fee for withdrawing to the Dash blockchain to lower the overall usage cost of Dash on their platform, including buying Dash to send as remittances to individuals living abroad. Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group, spoke about how these latest integration developments further allow Dash to benefit consumers:
“This integration simplifies how users transact with Dash and brings us one step closer to our goal of widespread adoption. InstantSend has been a key feature of Dash on Uphold, allowing for quick movement of Dash into and out of the platform. Its availability to both Android and iOS users without withdrawal fees means that Dash is even more affordable and accessible than ever
This new integration complements the previous integration into the official Android wallet, and now makes Dash purchasing simpler for both categories of consumers.
Creating a unified experience across all platforms
The addition of the iOS Uphold integration solidifies the Dash experience across all platforms. Global mobile software usage for July 2019 is around 76.1% of individuals on android and around 22.0% of individuals on iOS software. These statistics tend to strengthen in Latin American countries, which is a key target area for Dash’s remittance and usage growth strategy. The split between Android/Apple for 2019 in Venezuela is 88.8%/7.3%, Colombia is 72.4%/27.2%, Brazil is 75.2%/23.6% and Argentina is 86.9%/11.9%. While not completely consistent, the trend tends to be that the higher per capita GDP a country has, the larger the share of iOS usage since Sweden has an Android/Apple split of 50.7%/49.1%, the US has 42.0%/57.9%, and the UK has a split of 48.2%/51.5%.
Bridging the device gap may remove previous barriers to specific use cases as well. Since Dash is now available for direct fiat-to-Dash purchases on both Android and Apple phones, the device distribution data indicates that this will better enable individuals in iOS-heavy countries to purchase and send Dash as a remittance to Android-heavy countries.
Dash’s “one-stop shop” gameplan
Integrations such as Uphold follow Dash’s philosophy of ease of use to the consumer, with every necessary element easily accessible in one location or service. Dash’s partnership with Kripto Mobile has integrated pre-downloaded Dash apps onto phones, providing consumers with everything they need to get started with Dash; purchasing, storing, sending, spending and more. These phones have sold over 66,000 devices in Latin America so far and have helped contribute to the 10,000 active Android Dash wallets in Venezuela. Kripto Mobile forged a partnership with Dash Text to reach the large Latin American base (60% of Venezuelans and 59% of Colombians) that do not own smartphones. One of the pre-downloaded apps is the DiscoverDash app, which allows consumers to see where they can spend Dash near them.
This philosophy extends to business integrations as well. The Millennium mall parking lot in western Venezuela recently integrated Dash and has seen over 700 Dash transaction in a month and surpassed fiat payments, since consumers prefer the faster speeds and lower fees. Part of their success is due to having on-site attendees to help individuals purchase Dash, peer-to-peer. These developments allow Dash to bring together all aspects of an economy in a Dash microcosm to facilitate Dash adoption and usage.
