Bradley Zastrow on Dash's expansion in Latin America and North America

0:23what are you specifically focused on right now actually in about a week or so it'll be my one year anniversary with – core group so that's pretty exciting congratulations now I think it's amazing how quick actually the time goes especially in the crypto space but you know right now we're just really focusing on executing our strategy that was something we had presented to this

0:46to the community near the end of September of this year so really building that out focusing on our existing partnerships and identifying and building new ones that's awesome well it's definitely been an exciting year 2018 and a lot of things have happened for cryptocurrency and of course we've also been going through the you know this bearish market you know

1:06how have the attitudes towards the growth of – and the cryptocurrency community inside of – you know affected by this are you guys working just as hard is the community just growing just as quickly yeah I mean the bear market is certainly unfortunate but I think you know at the end of the day it really doesn't change our focus or our commitment to what we're doing and you

1:29know at the same time though there's definitely times I think when it went hurts you know a higher coin price for example enables our monthly Treasury process to just fund more projects but you know what I think that means right now is that we're just kind of simply focusing more strongly on kind of what we what we're doing and the opportunities we do have but I think

1:52overall the commitment to what we think – can do as a payment Network and a solution of those payment problems we see the solution just as viable so nothing's changed on that side that's great to hear and I know the people that are super focused on development and you know growth of the communities inside the blockchain industry they're not fazed by

2:14the sentiment of the market and it's glad to hear that you know – is working very hard to achieve your guys's goals and I hope moving forward to 2019 you know we'll see some some bullishness back in the market and that will help expand the community exponentially so definitely I mean it may be a quick context as well with that I mean one thing that we're

2:35kind of excited about seeing is even in this bear market you know our average daily transactions and still moderately increased on average so that's still showing us that the usage is there and we're still seeing great growth for example in Venezuela as far as merchant acquisition and user acquisition on that side – so I think yeah like you said you

2:57know it is a bear market but we're still seeing some positive signs that's awesome so as you guys grow you know for you what are the specific goals of – core you know that you're looking to achieve in the next six or 12 months here yeah I think you know Canada as I mentioned – you know we're a payment Network we focus on near-instant transaction speeds and micro fees and so

3:20we're looking at really the payment space – to where there's friction where there's problems and where we see that are being you know a solution that we can provide we kind of boil that down basically the greatest fit and greatest need the greatest need is really where your currency is broken if your currencies broken every payment type is impacted so for where we see the

3:43greatest need we're focusing heavily on Venezuela as well as then those kind of secondary markets around Venezuela in Latin America kind of in general greatest fit comes down to a few different payment options in the legacy space we know we're not going to be a solution to everyone everywhere but where we do see there being opportunities for example in cash heavy

4:04industries very high cost of doing business and so in that sense we're focusing on the US cannabis industry we also see an opportunity in high chargebacks high cards back industries for credit cards specifically in our case focusing on that gaming and gambling of industries remittances of course is I think one of the more obvious use cases for cryptocurrency and

4:28again we're focusing on that area but more specifically that mexico-us corridor and then again even crypto crypto does have its friction points sometimes it does take too long or cost too much and so what we're really doing in the crypto space is focusing on our instance and integration with exchanges which then just builds a network liquidity and kind of greater arbitrage

4:51and security options for users wow that's awesome Bradley I didn't know that you guys were working on US cannabis and you know gambling and getting into those other niche industries I have heard a lot about you know what – is doing in Latin America and in Venezuela and its really great to see that you guys are actually making an impact you know right away in those

5:11areas but it's very interesting to hear that you guys are also targeting targeting these specific American markets and you touched on some of the problems that you guys are trying to solve with you know high cost of business the problems with cash in the currencies in Venezuela what other limitations do you see maybe more specifically in the American

5:29markets that you guys are going to need to overcome to increase the adoption of – you know in those markets you know I think it's probably a couple of different things I mean I think even just overall in general you know there's just at an industry level that there's probably a certain level of maturation that still needs to kind of occur noise like the bch situation ico scams the

5:53shilling and pumping of chunk that you see in this space you know none of that's really helpful to adoption that's not that specific that's all you know kind of serious projects we're all impacted by that and I think you know ultimately mainstream users are going to be put off by that either businesses or users the bottom line is people are going to be looking to minimize their

6:14risk especially when it deals with their money and in anything that I guess portrays this as maybe not being a serious industry you can impact that we feel that we're doing the right thing to change that perception we don't participate in that space we don't pump our coin and we've never advertised as an investment opportunity that's something a decision we've taken

6:41quite consciously as well you know and from – core group you know we're also built or rather built by you know very serious business professionals our CEO Ryan Taylor comes well he's ex McKinsey Consulting ex hundreds on management our CFO comes from Morgan Stanley I come from 18 years with American Express so you know we're serious about what we're

7:06doing and we think that experience is a huge advantage as far as you know the groundwork that we're laying now and what we think we can achieve moving forward but then more importantly I think our network itself is one of the biggest advantages especially to kind of combating that risk and that kind of I guess obstacles like you're saying our network is one is a fully

7:29decentralized autonomous organization were proactive and have a strong governance in a 24-hour vote we went to you know we could vote to scale to megabyte block size while everybody else is still arguing over the fork and it's at Lightning Network is a bigger block size we did it a 24 hour vote Wow instant send is now on all outgoing transactions a key element to enabling

7:53point to sale you know transactions and enablement we are now have fifty percent one fifty one percent attack mitigation through chain locks and this is all done through our master to network so you know I think it's something that's maybe sometimes a little bit of an unsung hero but you know at the same time I think that's something that as this space does

8:16mature we're gonna see businesses and users pay more attention to you know how networks can obviously handle and manage growth and how can they direct growth that is what I think they're gonna want to see that's awesome and that actually sounds like you guys have a lot of great business experience you know to integrate into this blockchain

8:36effort that you guys are doing and that makes all the difference because there are a lot of blockchain projects that have that lack of business expertise and as you mentioned earlier the mainstream media really hasn't done any favors for cryptocurrency and showing the benefits that it can provide you know as a payment solution with all of the you know the price

8:56increases and drastic price drops and ICO scams and things like that so is your is your guys's team really focused on you know education and you know lowering the barriers to entry for the technical expertise because I could see how a lot of vendors you know for example in the cannabis industry in America there's there's that educational barrier where they don't fully

9:19understand because it sounds like it's super technical right like blockchain is something they're not familiar with so how much are you guys focusing on education well I think you know even maybe like if I could dial it even just slightly higher than that education is definitely a strong component of what I would say is just maybe more broadly just making it easier you know at the

9:43end of the day making it easier to acquire making it easier to store making easier to transact whether that's on the merchant side or the business side you're definitely right I think the way we go about making or I guess tackling that problem and that's a combination of education different type of awareness etc for example with merchants when we integrate with the business partner –

10:09core group we have a capabilities team that actually works hand in hand with that business partner on the technical integration so some business partners obviously you know may not need a lot or maybe any assistance some might need a lot more there's a spectrum of course so right off the bat just that little bit of Education how – works on that technical level with the important I

10:33guess technical people within that business partner we're able to directly facilitate that which I think again distinguishes us a little bit from perhaps other networks and other coins having that always-on kind of resource I think more broadly it's also around you know how do you create real world use cases I think in many ways the best education is getting things in the hands

10:56of people and letting them play with it letting them experience it and let them you know almost that self-directed education if you will if something is simple enough they can do that I think what we've done most recently in that case or space Rather's with our partnership with Krypton mobile which is a manufacturer of Android smartphones inexpensive handsets around circa 100

11:22USD specifically for the Latin American market in Venezuela what we built with that partnership was a phone that was pre-installed with the – ecosystem so you could acquire you could store you could spend your – all in one space that was partnered also with uphold being pre-loaded on the wallet and bit refill as well more importantly we also gave

11:44them just a little bit of – not enough to actually buy anything but a little bit of – in a paper wallet within the box of the phone itself and that allowed people to experience and play with a little bit of crypto with really no risk you know they got to experience that concept of a QR scan reclaiming those funds into their wallet the set up with a you know the seed phrase and how

12:08that works building on that kind of education process from that kind of very base level foundation but then combining that with the network funded initiative on the ground in Caracas that is actually a live help desk so at the same time you had more mainstream people interacting with – and then having that safety net that they're already used to people are

12:32used to transacting where you have a 1-800 number etc that you can call we tried to mimic that same scenario that must include with a helpdesk there and so overall trying to create that positive feedback loop where you know again people are now hopefully going to be you know acquiring – storing and transacting and that building on that foundation as we start to expand within

12:54the market well that the crypto mobile partnership sounds like it's a great way to get more you know – in the hands of more people and I understand where you're coming from where you say if you the only way to really learn is to you know send a transaction and have it on your phone you know and because of the technical expertise once you can fully realize how easy it is once you

13:18quickly send a transaction from your phone but to read about it there's no comparison you know so I'm glad that you guys are you know providing a little bit of – – you know the crypto mobile phone holders as well and I see that as a really strong use case for community growth and adoption so that's awesome so what else do you guys have in your business development roadmap that you're

13:43targeting within the next six months well we just recently launched two partners in the last couple of weeks so panda exchange which is a smaller exchange focused in Latin America as well as be payments which is a channel partner focusing in that high chargeback and cannabis space so we're looking forward to obviously development with those partners and seeing what obviously

14:07bigger and better things that we can hopefully build I don't usually provide any sort of forward-looking statements but in my last quarterly update with the community what we did talk about was eight partnerships or rather deals that we're currently working at or working on in the pipeline right now two of which are just mentioned were launched so we're

14:28currently now at six that were we're actively working that's awesome Bradley so are you guys looking for more people to get involved on the development side of – on the marketing side or just more members in the community and if people are looking to get involved you know what's the best way to approach you guys but you know always looking to expand the community I

14:48think you know the it's definitely a situation where the synergies one can extract from having a wide and diverse community is just going to be beneficial to the network as a whole so I'd say anyone that definitely wants to get involved you know please reach out you know whether it's through our website org the form that we hold there the discord communities is probably one of

15:10the more active spaces as far as kind of regular interaction with also other members of the community as well in addition to of course Twitter I'm just you know within the crypto space Twitter's a key communication channel for us as well and there's a lot of ways that I think really people can can get involved I think one of the more exciting ways to ease through that

15:33network or sorry through the month the budget and Treasury process if you don't see something that you think should be happening on the ground or in your own backyard you can build a proposal put it to the network for a vote so that's probably the one of the best ways to get involved you know it's to really kind of put skin in the game if you something you can actually build

15:54it so that's pretty exciting that's that's awesome yeah skin in the game it really is the best way to do it I'll provide the – org link the discord link in the Twitter link to the in the description below for the viewers I'd love if we followed up you know in q1 of 2019 and we can see how the partnerships are flourishing you know to secure those eight partnerships get the details on

16:17them see where Dash is moving forward that's all the time that we have right now but I'm looking forward to following up with you then and I will see how dash has grown now thank you very much I look forward to it cheers mate thank you so much Bradley