DeepBlue
Active member
Part 3 of Dash Decentralised Decision Making Strategy: Dash's Target Markets
The purpose of this post is to more clearly define, identify and agree upon Dash's primary target markets. These are target markets that we should be actively pursuing, developing, and where we invest the majority of our time, resources and Governance funds on. I am not saying we should work exclusively in these markets, however, I am suggesting we focus primarily on them.
Without a clear focus of our target markets governance decision making becomes unfocused, erratic and counter productive. We have seen time and again poor decisions being made in the Governance system which has led to large quantities of funding being wasted on projects that led to nothing. If all our wasted funds could have been invested exclusively in our target markets we could have had a much greater impact on establishing Dash as a currency.
I will first present my view on what are Dash's target markets and the reasons why I feel these are the markets we should be going after. Note that these markets may be different from that of Dash Core Group target markets, although there is some overlap. I am specifically referring to the target markets that we should be considering and voting on in the Dash Governance Funding System.
At the current stage of Dash's development my view is our target markets are as follows:
1. Countries with hyperinflation or rapidly devaluing currency.
2. The informal economy i.e. several billion people that are outside of the normal tax system and do not have ready access to banking facilities. The informal employment makes 64.6% in Latin America, 79.4% in Asia, and 80.4% in sub-Saharan Africa and 58.7% of non-agricultural employment in Middle East – North Africa. See this link to learn more about the informal economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_economy
3. Countries which have imposed currency controls.
4. Countries with dictators that have tight control over the population via the currency system.
I highly recommend you review Andreas Antonopolous comments in the following video about target markets for crypto.
Wind forward to time code 2.11 to hear Andreas's views on mass adoption
My view is that we should limit spending time, money and resources on projects in developed countries unless they actually benefit projects in one of the 4 target markets (distressed countries) above or if they come under one of the 6 categories for developed countries mentioned below.
I gave a detailed breakdown of the reasons for focusing on the markets suggested above in the following post:
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...omotion-in-venezuela-and-latin-america.40419/
In summary the main reasons were:
1. Real Utility: Dash will be used as a working currency. Real utility. Not a speculative investment. This would lead to an increase in the DASH price because it would be used increasingly be used as a working currency. What we have right now are mainly speculators and traders that are causing havoc with the Dash price.
2. Strong incentives to use crypto in countries where:
2.1 People don't have access to banking
2.2 High inflation,
2.3 Repressive regimes or political problems, are more likely to be the most highly motivated to use crypto because they don't have any viable alternatives. There is no such compelling incentive in developed countries with a viable banking system. Crypto is just a interesting novelty at this stage. (later on crypto will become established also in developed countries but not at this stage)
3. No legal barriers: Informal economies are ignored by governments: This means that crypto could become established without DASH having to meet restrictive regulations. Informal economies are seen as economies outside of the normal tax system and governments ignore them. This is a perfect environment for Crypto to gain a foothold.
The fact is that I cannot see many viable reasons why we should be spending large amounts of governance money on projects that are promoting cryptocurrency in developed countries - unless they have a positive impact on the target markets listed above or solve a real world problem that normal fiat currency can't solve. We should be focusing our energy and time primarily on markets that need DASH now as it is. For countries that have no real alternatives.
According to the World Bank statistics 1.7 Billion people are without a bank account - This is a huge market that desperately need a solution like DASH and are crying out for a reliable, independent money system they can use. And we have little to no barrier to entry from Governments to this economy. They cannot stop us getting into the informal economy because there are no controls over the informal economy by governments.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/i...sustainable-world?cid=ECR_TT_worldbank_EN_EXT
Other sources estimate 60% of the entire world population is in the informal or shadow economy
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_627189/lang--en/index.htm
There may well be other some markets for DASH in developed countries with a sound banking system however why spend our time and money trying to get into those markets when we have no barriers in the markets I've listed above? Take a look at ALT36 as an example. We spent well over a million USD on that project, with DCG providing support to them and what have we got to show for it? Absolutely ZIPPO! Why? because they got regulated the hell out that is why. Why spend our money on trying to get into countries that see crypto as a threat to the money system?
In a nutshell: Highly developed countries = highly developed, strict, awkward regulations + the desire to control their own currency. So why use valuable resources, time and energy in these markets when they have a financial system that works?
The only other areas I can see DASH projects in developed countries without currency problems or dictators are under the following circumstances:
1. Development projects to improve DASH as a currency e.g. creating a Dash twin stable coin for merchants that would work with our current Dash transaction coin.
2. Projects that solve a real world problems that normal fiat currency cannot solve and that the project is a viable project meaning that fluctuations in the currency price would not affect the project. Possible examples include projects involving micropayments, where it is not economically viable to use traditional payment methods or projects that involve linking payments to a distributed ledger e.g. legal document / contract registrations, copyright registrations etc.
3. Projects that could boost adoption in the target markets mentioned above in the informal / shadow economies or distressed currency countries.
4. Legal projects to ensure that DASH is not incorrectly categorised by governments that lead to its ban from exchanges.
5. Structured educational content / videos and website content that makes DASH easy to understand for anyone and where that content is highly ranked at search engines.
6. News and basic PR projects.
Exchange integrations are best dealt with by DCG rather than our normal governance projects.
Other than the above I do not see the logic of spending money on promoting DASH in developed countries with a stable currency when much greater good could come from addressing markets that do not have access to traditional banking.
My view is if DASH is ever to get established as a viable payment method we need to primarily focus on key markets that need, and want DASH now, and where there is a much lower barrier to entry. Countries in which the regulation is not as strict and which have large informal economies.
I hope that this post will stimulate some discussion regarding what Dash's target markets should be. Once we have clearly defined them it will make our governance funding decisions a lot more coordinated, focused and worthwhile.
The purpose of this post is to more clearly define, identify and agree upon Dash's primary target markets. These are target markets that we should be actively pursuing, developing, and where we invest the majority of our time, resources and Governance funds on. I am not saying we should work exclusively in these markets, however, I am suggesting we focus primarily on them.
Without a clear focus of our target markets governance decision making becomes unfocused, erratic and counter productive. We have seen time and again poor decisions being made in the Governance system which has led to large quantities of funding being wasted on projects that led to nothing. If all our wasted funds could have been invested exclusively in our target markets we could have had a much greater impact on establishing Dash as a currency.
I will first present my view on what are Dash's target markets and the reasons why I feel these are the markets we should be going after. Note that these markets may be different from that of Dash Core Group target markets, although there is some overlap. I am specifically referring to the target markets that we should be considering and voting on in the Dash Governance Funding System.
At the current stage of Dash's development my view is our target markets are as follows:
1. Countries with hyperinflation or rapidly devaluing currency.
2. The informal economy i.e. several billion people that are outside of the normal tax system and do not have ready access to banking facilities. The informal employment makes 64.6% in Latin America, 79.4% in Asia, and 80.4% in sub-Saharan Africa and 58.7% of non-agricultural employment in Middle East – North Africa. See this link to learn more about the informal economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_economy
3. Countries which have imposed currency controls.
4. Countries with dictators that have tight control over the population via the currency system.
I highly recommend you review Andreas Antonopolous comments in the following video about target markets for crypto.
Wind forward to time code 2.11 to hear Andreas's views on mass adoption
My view is that we should limit spending time, money and resources on projects in developed countries unless they actually benefit projects in one of the 4 target markets (distressed countries) above or if they come under one of the 6 categories for developed countries mentioned below.
I gave a detailed breakdown of the reasons for focusing on the markets suggested above in the following post:
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...omotion-in-venezuela-and-latin-america.40419/
In summary the main reasons were:
1. Real Utility: Dash will be used as a working currency. Real utility. Not a speculative investment. This would lead to an increase in the DASH price because it would be used increasingly be used as a working currency. What we have right now are mainly speculators and traders that are causing havoc with the Dash price.
2. Strong incentives to use crypto in countries where:
2.1 People don't have access to banking
2.2 High inflation,
2.3 Repressive regimes or political problems, are more likely to be the most highly motivated to use crypto because they don't have any viable alternatives. There is no such compelling incentive in developed countries with a viable banking system. Crypto is just a interesting novelty at this stage. (later on crypto will become established also in developed countries but not at this stage)
3. No legal barriers: Informal economies are ignored by governments: This means that crypto could become established without DASH having to meet restrictive regulations. Informal economies are seen as economies outside of the normal tax system and governments ignore them. This is a perfect environment for Crypto to gain a foothold.
The fact is that I cannot see many viable reasons why we should be spending large amounts of governance money on projects that are promoting cryptocurrency in developed countries - unless they have a positive impact on the target markets listed above or solve a real world problem that normal fiat currency can't solve. We should be focusing our energy and time primarily on markets that need DASH now as it is. For countries that have no real alternatives.
According to the World Bank statistics 1.7 Billion people are without a bank account - This is a huge market that desperately need a solution like DASH and are crying out for a reliable, independent money system they can use. And we have little to no barrier to entry from Governments to this economy. They cannot stop us getting into the informal economy because there are no controls over the informal economy by governments.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/i...sustainable-world?cid=ECR_TT_worldbank_EN_EXT
Other sources estimate 60% of the entire world population is in the informal or shadow economy
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_627189/lang--en/index.htm
There may well be other some markets for DASH in developed countries with a sound banking system however why spend our time and money trying to get into those markets when we have no barriers in the markets I've listed above? Take a look at ALT36 as an example. We spent well over a million USD on that project, with DCG providing support to them and what have we got to show for it? Absolutely ZIPPO! Why? because they got regulated the hell out that is why. Why spend our money on trying to get into countries that see crypto as a threat to the money system?
In a nutshell: Highly developed countries = highly developed, strict, awkward regulations + the desire to control their own currency. So why use valuable resources, time and energy in these markets when they have a financial system that works?
The only other areas I can see DASH projects in developed countries without currency problems or dictators are under the following circumstances:
1. Development projects to improve DASH as a currency e.g. creating a Dash twin stable coin for merchants that would work with our current Dash transaction coin.
2. Projects that solve a real world problems that normal fiat currency cannot solve and that the project is a viable project meaning that fluctuations in the currency price would not affect the project. Possible examples include projects involving micropayments, where it is not economically viable to use traditional payment methods or projects that involve linking payments to a distributed ledger e.g. legal document / contract registrations, copyright registrations etc.
3. Projects that could boost adoption in the target markets mentioned above in the informal / shadow economies or distressed currency countries.
4. Legal projects to ensure that DASH is not incorrectly categorised by governments that lead to its ban from exchanges.
5. Structured educational content / videos and website content that makes DASH easy to understand for anyone and where that content is highly ranked at search engines.
6. News and basic PR projects.
Exchange integrations are best dealt with by DCG rather than our normal governance projects.
Other than the above I do not see the logic of spending money on promoting DASH in developed countries with a stable currency when much greater good could come from addressing markets that do not have access to traditional banking.
My view is if DASH is ever to get established as a viable payment method we need to primarily focus on key markets that need, and want DASH now, and where there is a much lower barrier to entry. Countries in which the regulation is not as strict and which have large informal economies.
I hope that this post will stimulate some discussion regarding what Dash's target markets should be. Once we have clearly defined them it will make our governance funding decisions a lot more coordinated, focused and worthwhile.
Last edited:
