Venezuela 2nd Biggest Market for DASH, Says CEO

Venezuela has become the second largest market for Dash (DASH), with almost one hundred merchants accepting the cryptocurrency every week.

Speaking to Business Insider, the CEO of Dash Core Group, Ryan Taylor, which is the legal entity backing Dash’s core development team, claimed that interest from both businesses and consumers was on the rise with each passing week.

“We are seeing tens of thousands of wallet downloads from the country each month,” he said.

“Earlier this year, Venezuela became our number two market even ahead of China and Russia, which are of course huge into cryptocurrency right now,” Taylor added.

Venezuela devalued its old bolivar by the equivalent of 96%, establishing its replacement to its contentious Petro cryptocurrency, igniting renewed desire to avoid financial instability using cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin trading volumes on P2P exchange platform LocalBitcoins is producing new records on a weekly basis in what Purse.io head of support Eduardo Gomez says is “pure hyperinflationary despair” on the day of the switch to the new Sovereign Bolivar.

Dash seeks to facilitate that circumvention, Taylor inferred, stressing that merchants such as Subway had also signed up to accept the altcoin.

“We’ve seen 94 new Venezuelan merchants added to DiscoverDash.com since last week, which is about double the normal rate of about 50 merchants per week [over] the last couple of months,” Taylor remarked.

Dash made headlines in past months when its value surged and well-known figures such as Max Keiser began endorsing its usage in the US.

Since hitting giant highs around $1500 in December 2017, however, the altcoin has slipped and lost most of its value, currently trading around $150.