We need Merchants USING Dash!

[TanteStefana]

@Solarminer, the core team are working in the macro world, the big business side of things. I'm fine with that, but their heads are not in the micro space, the smallest / lowest unit of commerce. We have to get a team together to do this. Maybe if we keep talking about it, someone will see our plea and step up to the plate.

IMO, we need a simple easy way for a small vendor to accept Dash and turn it into fiat (optional) deposited into their account without a 3rd party. A vendor with his chosen exchange and chosen bank. Add a few "easy" management tools, and get it to spread at conventions, at fairs, at flea markets. These people don't need much, what they need is low fees.

We could take something like https://unicenta.com/ and cut it down/simplify or add to it. Include a Dash payment processor, perhaps the code from Odoo can be reused and inserted here?

There are a lot of Open Source projects we can integrate with that give individuals access to POS solutions.

 

[bandidorl]

@Solarminer I´m in Spain and I have a shakepay card and I´m using it in a daily basis so it´s available to Europe too.

 

[Solarminer]

@Solarminer I´m in Spain and I have a shakepay card and I´m using it in a daily basis so it´s available to Europe too.

Hey, that is great. It may be useful to use a crypto debit card to spend crypto. But why not just use cash? Or use a rewards credit card and get a % back? Both would have less fees than converting fiat to crypto, then back to fiat with a debit card fee. Maybe there is a benefit to not risking funds in a bank account or risking fiat devaluation. But the intent with my comment was more about how press releases for the same debit cards that have been out for months keep coming out. Like Dash has no news, but lets make up news with old news. The bigger flaw in the entire situation is that they are reporting the solutions that only non InstantX cryptos need(ATMs and Debit Cards)

@TanteStefana, my debate with going forward with a solution is that I don't want to commit to the 6+ months needed to keep a server going and respond to requests for support. So my plan is super simple. I already know how to do it. And the user doesn't need to buy anything else to use it.

 

[AndyDark]

Hey, that is great. It may be useful to use a crypto debit card to spend crypto. But why not just use cash? Or use a rewards credit card and get a % back? Both would have less fees than converting fiat to crypto, then back to fiat with a debit card fee. Maybe there is a benefit to not risking funds in a bank account or risking fiat devaluation. But the intent with my comment was more about how press releases for the same debit cards that have been out for months keep coming out. Like Dash has no news, but lets make up news with old news. The bigger flaw in the entire situation is that they are reporting the solutions that only non InstantX cryptos need(ATMs and Debit Cards)

@TanteStefana, my debate with going forward with a solution is that I don't want to commit to the 6+ months needed to keep a server going and respond to requests for support. So my plan is super simple. I already know how to do it. And the user doesn't need to buy anything else to use it.

"Maybe there is a benefit to not risking funds in a bank account or risking fiat devaluation" - this. A lot of people want to get their value out of fiat. These debit cards let you keep your money in crypto, but quickly convert it and pay with any bricks & mortar merchant anywhere in the world (when that merchant doesn't accept crypto). Same with buying online. You pay a markup at the point you convert but you minimize the time / amount you hold in fiat. That's a big thing for lot of people.

 

[AndyDark]

@Solarminer, the core team are working in the macro world, the big business side of things. I'm fine with that, but their heads are not in the micro space, the smallest / lowest unit of commerce. We have to get a team together to do this. Maybe if we keep talking about it, someone will see our plea and step up to the plate.

IMO, we need a simple easy way for a small vendor to accept Dash and turn it into fiat (optional) deposited into their account without a 3rd party. A vendor with his chosen exchange and chosen bank. Add a few "easy" management tools, and get it to spread at conventions, at fairs, at flea markets. These people don't need much, what they need is low fees.

We could take something like https://unicenta.com/ and cut it down/simplify or add to it. Include a Dash payment processor, perhaps the code from Odoo can be reused and inserted here?

There are a lot of Open Source projects we can integrate with that give individuals access to POS solutions.

"the core team are working in the macro world, the big business side of things." my take would be that Point of Sale is low priority for the team right now, as the teams job is improving the technology to make Dash more usable / useful for payments in general especially e-commerce. small-merchant integration gets pushed to the back of the queue. It's an area that would be great for non-developers to work on (who aren't developing the tech or engaged in business development for larger projects like debit cards, fiat conversion, online service integration). But no one seems to be working on it. I don't think it matters in the interim because there is also the problem that when small merchants setup POS for Dash, you then need consumers with Dash in their locality to make it worth the merchants time/cost. Maybe it would be productive to target a specific locality and get merchants in that area to accept Dash, and local consumers to use Dash around some cause.

 

[AndyDark]

I only tagged you because I was responding to the BCT post which is down. I can't post anything there lately! Not meaning to be agressive, just antsy. So busy too, with today being Halloween. Just spent 2 hours doing my kid's makeup, Ugh! All 3 kids pulling in 3 directions too!

So, anyway, I am passionate about getting a solution out there for the smallest merchants. I used to sell on ebay years ago and finally stopped because of the insane charges. 15% flat for using ebay (10%) and paypal (5%) and they have a corner on the market. If you don't accept paypal, nobody will bid/buy. And the 10% ebay charges is just insane.

But in the beginning it was far better! And I KNOW this is a great market inroad for us!

"So, anyway, I am passionate about getting a solution out there for the smallest merchants" agree Tante, we all are

"I used to sell on ebay years ago and finally stopped because of the insane charges" - this is the key. Small (physical) merchants that integrate Dash have access only to local consumers the likelihood of whom are Dash users is tiny right now. Online merchants have access to ALL Dash users globally, i.e. not limited to their local area. That's why we are focused on the latter, the former will come in time (and why Dash debit cards are good solution for this and a lot of Dash users are now doing that on a daily basis - and why this is something obviously we want to promote)

 

[TanteStefana]

Hey, that is great. It may be useful to use a crypto debit card to spend crypto. But why not just use cash? Or use a rewards credit card and get a % back? Both would have less fees than converting fiat to crypto, then back to fiat with a debit card fee. Maybe there is a benefit to not risking funds in a bank account or risking fiat devaluation. But the intent with my comment was more about how press releases for the same debit cards that have been out for months keep coming out. Like Dash has no news, but lets make up news with old news. The bigger flaw in the entire situation is that they are reporting the solutions that only non InstantX cryptos need(ATMs and Debit Cards)

@TanteStefana, my debate with going forward with a solution is that I don't want to commit to the 6+ months needed to keep a server going and respond to requests for support. So my plan is super simple. I already know how to do it. And the user doesn't need to buy anything else to use it.

I would love to hear your idea! Or see it presented with a proposal. Or even be a part of a team - er if I can help at all - to help with how to go about garnering support before submitting a proposal.

 

[itscrazybro]

I definitely agree with the idea that more merchant adoption is needed, however I view this from a different perspective.

If we look from the merchant side of things, why would they accept Dash? Who is going to spend Dash at their store? Our market cap and user base is still relatively small so if a merchant were to accept Dash I would doubt it would make that much of an impact on their earnings, if any at all. The hassle to accept Dash and then when paid in Dash to convert it to fiat, in my opinion far outweighs the benefit of accepting Dash.

I look at it like this.

The debit card solution is a great initiative as it allows more people to store their money in Dash because they now have an easy way to spend it if needed. Because of this, Dash acts a lot more like an everyday currency which is great because prior to this it was just a speculative asset. Once more people use Dash as a currency and more speculative money comes in then the market cap will rise which makes us a more attractive option for crypto services to integrate and merchants to accept. Think of services such as payment processors (bitpay, spectrocoin, coinbase etc). These integrations all of a sudden make it really easy for merchants to accept Dash as they resolve the issue of converting Dash to fiat and the issue of setting up Dash as a payment option.

I agree that we do need our own POS team who works on a solution for merchants but I do think the first push should be to get already existing payment processors to integrate Dash so that we can easily onboard merchants. In conjunction to this I think that continued work on Fiat Gateways is needed so that merchants can easily sell dash to fiat no matter where they are situated in the world. When we have all these things worked out, our market cap should be a lot higher meaning that merchants will have more of an incentive to accept us and we will have more money in the treasury to fund a POS team and merchant sales team.

At this time I feel uneasy asking a merchant to accept Dash because I know that the process of accepting Dash is going to be extremely complicated and the process of selling the Dash for fiat is going to be even more difficult.

So to get to my point, I do agree with you but I think the order in which things are happening is necessary right now. Partnerships and integrations first then our own merchant solution. Baby steps.

 

[TanteStefana]

my take would be that Point of Sale is low priority for the team right now, as the teams job is improving the technology to make Dash more usable / useful for payments in general especially e-commerce. small-merchant integration gets pushed to the back of the queue. It's an area that would be great for non-developers to work on (who aren't developing the tech or engaged in business development for larger projects like debit cards, fiat conversion, online service integration). But no one seems to be working on it. I don't think it matters in the interim because there is also the problem that when small merchants setup POS for Dash, you then need consumers with Dash in their locality to make it worth the merchants time/cost. Maybe it would be productive to target a specific locality and get merchants in that area to accept Dash, and local consumers to use Dash around some cause.

Exactly, and I have no problem with the Core Team doing what they are doing, as long as they don't hamstring other areas that need to be worked on. Unfortunately there are too many people here that are not diplomats and step on toes until we have anger and nasty words. Yet everyone wants to improve Dash usefulness.

As far as where I've made your words in bold, I think a grass movement level, lowest level, spread of information might be all that's needed. But I was thinking that if we could make a simple app that would be useful and free for small vendors (I mean SMALL, as in flea market, convention merchants, arts and crafts fair vendors, etc) it would be so amazing for them to use, they'd love it and automatically will be able to accept Dash. A simple way to set up auto exchange to fiat, and deposit into a bank account, along side cash acceptance. No credit card integration, let that be their 2nd / unwanted option that they have to have separate, but can still use the inventory / accounting app with (that shows their fees of course, when accepting CC payments ;P) Also, the app can guestimate their fees from exchanges,etc... and the merchant can compare the time it takes to receive their funds using Dash vs cash vs CC Cash isn't fun for these people to handle. It's bulky and they can feel like a target having to guard it as well. The ease of use at this level will make it such a favorite, that they may offer a discount if you use Dash, and if they do that, people will have a reason to buy it for the next convention, flea market or Art Fair.

"So, anyway, I am passionate about getting a solution out there for the smallest merchants" agree Tante, we all are

"I used to sell on ebay years ago and finally stopped because of the insane charges" - this is the key. Small (physical) merchants that integrate Dash have access only to local consumers the likelihood of whom are Dash users is tiny right now. Online merchants have access to ALL Dash users globally, i.e. not limited to their local area. That's why we are focused on the latter, the former will come in time (and why Dash debit cards are good solution for this and a lot of Dash users are now doing that on a daily basis - and why this is something obviously we want to promote)

Chicken or egg thing, yes I know. But as I stated above, if merchants give a discount (we can't tell them to, but we could suggest it) then the next time convention and Arts and Crafts goers, flea market customers etc... will start to think they should load up on a bit of Dash to take advantage of the discounts. It's a long process, but with a targeted campaign (start by going through the convention organizers, etc...) to spread the word, etc... We can get this chicken to lay the egg, or the egg to hatch.

 

[Solarminer]

The debit card solution is actually a much better option with Bitcoin. There is really no need to have Dash or even invest in Dash if you are just going to use crypto as a currency hedge.

Dash has the advantage with InstantX. It enables merchants to accept crypto instantly without double spend risk. Bitcoin doesn't have that option. Merchants are not idiots, why would they accept Bitcoin for point of sale knowing that it can be double spent. I suppose we could wait a few months for lightning to fill that need, but that is a lost opportunity for Dash.

 

[TanteStefana]

I definitely agree with the idea that more merchant adoption is needed, however I view this from a different perspective.

If we look from the merchant side of things, why would they accept Dash? Who is going to spend Dash at their store? Our market cap and user base is still relatively small so if a merchant were to accept Dash I would doubt it would make that much of an impact on their earnings, if any at all. The hassle to accept Dash and then when paid in Dash to convert it to fiat, in my opinion far outweighs the benefit of accepting Dash.

Exactly, and approaching mini marts and even chain store donute shops is a waste of time. I'm particularly trying to say to target SMALL, TINY merchants! Those that at most have an online store! Those that travel to sell their wares, to the local college flea market, toy conventions, Sci fi fantasy conventions, heck, maybe you are unaware of how many small conventions with a vendor room, selling "fun" stuff related to the theme of the convention there are! TONS. This stuff is big and constantly growing! And these small vendors will try new things, as will their creative and fun loving customers (or maybe cheap in some circles, where they'll do anything to save a penny)

I look at it like this.

The debit card solution is a great initiative as it allows more people to store their money in Dash because they now have an easy way to spend it if needed. Because of this, Dash acts a lot more like an everyday currency which is great because prior to this it was just a speculative asset. Once more people use Dash as a currency and more speculative money comes in then the market cap will rise which makes us a more attractive option for crypto services to integrate and merchants to accept. Think of services such as payment processors (bitpay, spectrocoin, coinbase etc). These integrations all of a sudden make it really easy for merchants to accept Dash as they resolve the issue of converting Dash to fiat and the issue of setting up Dash as a payment option.

I agree that this is an excellent approach, and it will hopefully reach a percentage of average customers. But it will not distinguish Dash from any other Crypto Currency!!! Dash will only be one of several at best! And Dash is even the only one paying to be included which is pretty sad IMO, but if it works, I won't argue. I'd rather be included than excluded.

Dash has Instant Send, it's unique, it's safe and WORKS, and doesn't really technically need 3rd parties. Sure, these 3rd parties are going to help us get recognized, and that's great, but if we want to REALLY show off, we need to build - at the same time of course - a grass roots level adoption. From both ends we must burn the midnight candle!

I agree that we do need our own POS team who works on a solution for merchants but I do think the first push should be to get already existing payment processors to integrate Dash so that we can easily onboard merchants. In conjunction to this I think that continued work on Fiat Gateways is needed so that merchants can easily sell dash to fiat no matter where they are situated in the world. When we have all these things worked out, our market cap should be a lot higher meaning that merchants will have more of an incentive to accept us and we will have more money in the treasury to fund a POS team and merchant sales team.

At this time I feel uneasy asking a merchant to accept Dash because I know that the process of accepting Dash is going to be extremely complicated and the process of selling the Dash for fiat is going to be even more difficult.

So to get to my point, I do agree with you but I think the order in which things are happening is necessary right now. Partnerships and integrations first then our own merchant solution. Baby steps.

I'm not arguing against this, I hope that's clear. I'm arguing not to leave ANY stone unturnned and there is a freaking Pink and Purple stone jumping and jittering right in front of us that wants to be unturned, but we are IGNORING it for some odd weird reason, I simply can't understand????

 

[TanteStefana]

The debit card solution is actually a much better option with Bitcoin. There is really no need to have Dash or even invest in Dash if you are just going to use crypto as a currency hedge.

Dash has the advantage with InstantX. It enables merchants to accept crypto instantly without double spend risk. Bitcoin doesn't have that option. Merchants are not idiots, why would they accept Bitcoin for point of sale knowing that it can be double spent. I suppose we could wait a few months for lightning to fill that need, but that is a lost opportunity for Dash.

I think ultimately, that it is good that we are keeping up with the bitcoiners in CC adoption, etc... Even so you don't "have" to use Dash, at least some will decide we're a better investment to hold. But in the end, Dash even has advantages here against all other cryptos. You know these CC providers want to make money, right? So they WILL charge the users a fee, along side the merchants paying a cc fee. But Dash holdings can make money for the CC issuer via Masternodes. Now, if you hold Dash, your CC can be free to use, or even earn interest.

So Dash can win there too.

I'm not arguing against this approach.

I'm arguing that we can't afford to ignore the elephant in the room! A population dying for a solution, literally! They're being killed with fees! They're open to a solution, and customers are always open to savings. We have two hungry populations that can afford to add this payment option (or buy a few Dash) as it'll be free and only take them their own time to learn about (and they'll be incentivized to do so because they don't want to be left behind their competition). And they don't, in general, have employees that they have to train either! Once merchants start accepting Dash, and maybe we can have a proposal to send anyone who downloads the app, a small sign to put on their sales table, then customers, seeing how many are accepting Dash and offering discounts for using it, will actually buy Dash.

This is grass roots, and it should NEVER be ignored. Core Team, even if it includes are fearless leader, Evan, is now ONLY a contractor to the Dash Network. A highly trusted contractor, sure, but they agreed to do certain things, and this is outside their scope, and nobody on the core team has either the interest or the skill for this type of work. Thus we need to build a new team for our grassroots efforts! I know a lot of people have been arguing this point, arguing with the Core team (because they want the core team to do this) but it can not work this way. This needs to be another team, separate but partners and supportive of each other.

The candle must burn on both ends because we are in a VERY competitive market, and if we don't, we'll lose our hard won lead!

 

[AndyDark]

The debit card solution is actually a much better option with Bitcoin. There is really no need to have Dash or even invest in Dash if you are just going to use crypto as a currency hedge.

Dash has the advantage with InstantX. It enables merchants to accept crypto instantly without double spend risk. Bitcoin doesn't have that option. Merchants are not idiots, why would they accept Bitcoin for point of sale knowing that it can be double spent. I suppose we could wait a few months for lightning to fill that need, but that is a lost opportunity for Dash.

btw Lightening isn't going to let you walk into a merchant and do an instant transaction. It's built on payment channels where you and the merchant would need to enter into (essentially) a contract where you both commit an upfront amount of Bitcoin before you transact. after that you can do 'instant transactions' in the sense you exchange meta data / tally up your balances off-chain and if one party reneges the other can close the channel and reclaim the balance. if you lose that meta data you lose your coins too in that scenario, not like an HD seed you can write on a piece of paper. it's really a cost-reduction solution for settlements between centralized ecosystem providers (and theoretically a scaling 'solution' if that results in less on-chain transactions). zero chance end users will benefit from it in terms of security or decentralization or have any easy way to use it i think. Plus the implementation is a mess. Blockstream devs are good at modest core protocol changes and narrow-scope cryptographic problems within the paradigm that Satoshi had got to when he/she left. That's why we merge that to our T1 protocol. In Evolution we have our own solution that stores the meta data in the network so you can do this on mobile (and setup channels by adding a merchant's service listing in the wallet). it's a long way off, but a decentralized end-user solution.

 

[TanteStefana]

I'm hoping you all will help me come up with a good approach, but I'm thinking something like this:

We develope an application, a very simple one.
1. It allows the merchant to track their supply costs, labor hours, cost of setting up shop wherever they go and sales.
2. They could assign an item they made a number, track the supplies needed to make it and the hours
3. When they sell it, they enter the number, and can see how low they can go on the price before losing money
4. we could make it so they can print out a spread sheet (integrate with open office) or put it in a format that is common for fancier popular accounting software.
5. We would make it possible for the merchant to auto send to their favorite exchange, where they can manually convert or have it done by their exchange automatically, and send fiat to their bank
6. We could include estimated fees for the system they choose to convert to fiat, so they can see what it's costing them really, as opposed to using CCs

There may not be many choices for the merchant as to what exchange to use depending on where the merchant lives, but if we make it so that it's really easy to set up, that's more important

Next, we approach convention organizers. There are vintage clothing conventions, erotic conventions, doll conventions, toy conventions, model train conventions, conventions for people who like to dress up like stuffed animals conventions, D&D conventions, comic con, etc... Millions of conventions held each year! Go to the organizers, have them suggest DAsh to their merchants! Perhaps get them to bring in merchants *(their bread and butter, btw) in with free Dash and download the app. Have them advertise to customers, "Dash will be accepted here - bring your smart phone!"

I think this could be a very viable approach. What do you all think?

 

[TanteStefana]

btw Lightening isn't going to let you walk into a merchant and do an instant transaction. It's built on payment channels where you and the merchant would need to enter into (essentially) a contract where you both commit an upfront amount of Bitcoin before you transact. after that you can do 'instant transactions' in the sense you exchange meta data / tally up your balances off-chain and if one party reneges the other can close the channel and reclaim the balance. if you lose that meta data you lose your coins too in that scenario, not like an HD seed you can write on a piece of paper. it's really a cost-reduction solution for settlements between centralized ecosystem providers. zero chance end users will benefit from it or have any easy way to use it i think. Plus the implementation is a mess. Bitcoin devs are good at modest core protocol changes and narrow-scope cryptographic problems within the paradigm that Satoshi had got to when he/she left. That's why we merge that to our T1 protocol. In Evolution we have our own solution that stores the meta data in the network so you can do this on mobile (and setup channels by adding a merchant's service listing in the wallet). it's a long way off, but an end-user solution.

Exactly, and you don't mention that your funds are tied up in this off chain for an indeterminate length of time (depends on what was agreed to) with a minimum of an estimated 3 months to make it even worth it. What's the use in that? It's no longer really an instant payment solution, but looking more like it's only usefulness is in reducing traffic on the bitcoin network itself.

Make no mistake, people, we're still WAY ahead of the competition. We're in no immediate danger - even from clones, as they'd have an impossible time growing the value of their coin and network to compete, plus they don't have the talent.

But if we are the ones to break the glass ceiling, it must include the foundation of real, basic users who will eventually opt to keep their coins themselves in their own "personal bank" And if we don't nurture this end of things, we will truly stunt our growth!

 

[AndyDark]

Exactly, and you don't mention that your funds are tied up in this off chain for an indeterminate length of time (depends on what was agreed to) with a minimum of an estimated 3 months to make it even worth it. What's the use in that? It's no longer really an instant payment solution, but looking more like it's only usefulness is in reducing traffic on the bitcoin network itself.

yep. they are great developers but this is really a solution for settlements. not sure most Bitcoiners understand where their network is headed.

 

[TanteStefana]

No, they don't. Bitcoin will actually help Banks stay relevant for a long while yet. That's ok, it was bound to happen, and I'm sure it will be profitable to any bitcoin holder. So, may I ask, do you think my simple plan is viable? Would it work? Does anyone agree, and would anyone help?

(By the way, that was in agreement, you got that right? LOL)

 

[Luiz_Ant0n10]

A button for single purchases is a good suggestion, such as a paypal payment button as example.

For example, a DASH Payment Button to let your customers buy one item at a time. Following the same path, it would also be interesting to provide a button for donations; to allow donors to enter their own contribution amount, or send a fixed amount that you specify.

 

[TanteStefana]

A button for single purchases is a good suggestion, such as a paypal payment button as example.

For example, a DASH Payment Button to let your customers buy one item at a time. Following the same path, it would also be interesting to provide a button for donations; to allow donors to enter their own contribution amount, or send a fixed amount that you specify.

I like that too! Is it possible to offer up something like this without the DAPI at this time? I would think so, if we make an extremely simple pos app???

 

[indiamikezulu]

The debit card solution is actually a much better option with Bitcoin. There is really no need to have Dash or even invest in Dash if you are just going to use crypto as a currency hedge.

Dash has the advantage with InstantX. It enables merchants to accept crypto instantly without double spend risk. Bitcoin doesn't have that option. Merchants are not idiots, why would they accept Bitcoin for point of sale knowing that it can be double spent. I suppose we could wait a few months for lightning to fill that need, but that is a lost opportunity for Dash.

I was thinking about this the other day
If I were a merchant I would still want to accept traditional payments. Cash credit/debit but also dash.
Because of this a single cash register that can handle all the payments would be ideal. Or most but separate terminal for debit/credit like in some smaller businesses.
Keeping payment equipment to a min.

Now when it comes to payment from a consumer stand point I can see 2 options
1 phone payment, already options but possibly a universal one for android, iPhone and others. not everyone has a smart phone or the battery dies when you need it.
2. A chip+pin card Canada has been using it for years and while not 100 effective it has helped. With technology like what the kindle uses to read print the card can say how much dash is available and when inserted into the machine it updates to include any deposits/withdraws.

I was also thinking about gift cards
I don't know how one would do this with private keys, funding the card once purchased. Would probably have to be a 3rd party to do the work.
with this instantx is the way to go but the Fees are paid upfront, so if grandma purchases this card for there grandchildren the grand children won't get dinged the extra fees for processing and instantx. 5 dash is really 5 dash and not 4.5 dash once all is said and done.

Morning, DASH-ers. Gonna quietly read here 'til I get my feet.

Gift cards? There's an Australian mob: https://bitcoingiftcards.com.au/ Site sucks. Business model great. We used them ages ago, as there were then so few ways of spending crypto.

Mark