Quote from: BitcoinNational on March 27, 2016, 02:43:24 PM

and on the market front
the BIG5 (which Dash has the #5 spot)

all need independent (from BTC) fiat markets
Dash has not show the ability to establish it's spot at the Top Tier
This means VC capital and ultra secure top level markets ... exactly the opposite of Polo and Rex ... the big leagues where investors feel comfortable with $500k in their brokers hands ... aka the establishment.

FINSEC players
BTC is it. The big Kahunna!
ETH will get there based on the performance it has had Q1 2016.
XRP was built specifically for Top Tier finance.
LTC has a toe in the water with the CNY, China.
Doge has more exchange adoption than DASH.
And lots more have established connections with professional FINSEC players/markets.

Where is DASH?

Appearently the Dash dev-team was thinking about this a lot more in depth then any of us could have guessed :

https://dashtalk.org/threads/prioritization-of-fiat-gateways.8457/

Quote

Fiat access ramps development will be prioritized by the core team over PR and advertising during the next few months, starting in March. With certain small exceptions like Dash Chinese promotion in tandem with 8BTC.
For the next few months we will be focusing in partnerships, integrations and open source tools development that will facilitate better access to DASH and more options for user services to clear transactions on. Starting in March public-awareness budget funds are dedicated to this purpose as this is higher priority than advertising for the core team at the moment. Also, a series of back end open source tools will be made available for anyone looking to offer Dash services.

Budget prioritization, 12.1 and budget reset

The new 12.1 release will introduce new contracts functionality to DGBB. This version should be on testnet within the next month. When it is released into the mainnet all existing budgets will be cleared as part of the updating process and will need to be voted back in, on the new version.
At that point in time both the core-team and public-awareness budget proposals will be over and the core team will request new funding under a different model. We are currently working on it and more information will be released before 12.1 goes to the mainnet.
This is important to answer the question of why we are redirecting the public-awareness funds to build fiat access ramps instead voting down current proposals. The answer is, we will clear current core team proposals and will do it as part of the 12.1 release. This should give us enough time to finish preparing our new budget plan. In the meantime, the core project needs continuity so we kindly ask you to bear with us under the current model for 3 or 4 more months depending on testing results.
What are we working on?

Open Source - FIAT ACCESS RAMPS

The core team sees a need to strengthen direct FIAT access ramps to Dash in order to move into our next growth phase. We need to nurture the development of a rich ecosystem of user oriented applications.
Different user oriented applications are being created for Dash, like crypto ATMs, point of sale solutions, payment gateways, etc. Nevertheless we are currently missing one fundamental layer - all these user applications need more liquid and better FIAT DASH exchange services to clear on, including fixed price broker services, instant FIAT exchange, bid/ask FIAT exchanges, etc.

Exchanges are part of the basic infrastructure of the crypto economy, they can be thought about as public infrastructure. Without proper FIAT exchange services is harder for an asset to be independent and find a proper valuation.
Major FIAT exchanges are primarily interested in adding assets that already have high volume and high market cap and are less willing to support projects through their growing phase. So after an asset has established itself on all the major altcoin exchanges there is a gap. We are left with a catch 22 situation, not high enough volume for the large FIAT exchanges to open a trading pair and in need of safe and proper FIAT exchanges to grow and raise our volumes to where they would be interesting to larger exchanges and institutional investment. Also, legacy exchanges do not seem to have the intention to support a safer multi-sig user experience in the short term.
Because of this Dash is partnering with well reputed Bitcoin service operators to create proper FIAT Exchange services for DASH that are trustless, open source and built with the end user in mind. For this we are funding development of a suite of backend tools and integrations that will enable DASH/FIAT trustless exchange in partnership with Deginner, Coinapult and CryptoCapital.
We have decided to redirect the public-awareness budget funds to building these access ramps for the next few months. All projects will have to be reset in more or less 3 months and all budget proposals will have to be taken out and then voted back into the new version, so we dont want to go through this process twice. We also feel very strongly about this project and what it will represent for the Dash community

Safer FIAT Integration (CryptoCapital.co)

As part of this project, Dash will be integrated with CryptoCapital.co which is a fully licensed financial institution that allows each user to have their own private segregated fiat account. The funds that the user deposits to their own FIAT account can be made instantly available for trading on the exchange services. This is a key difference, the fact that each user will initially be sending money to themselves and then once those funds are available at CryptoCapital they can choose to move them to an exchange service and trade instantly.
Also besides exchange integration, CryptoCapital offers other services that will be available to Dash users too.

From their website:

By providing each customer with their own private segregated fiat account, Crypto Capital is able to allow Approved Software Exchange Companies the ability to open an account with us, therefore allowing our Customers, Merchants, and Traders the ability to move Fiat Currency, USD, EUR, JPY, etc., in and out instantly within our accounts.

There will no longer be lag when transferring funds between a customer private fiat account with us and the exchange account. Any Crypto Currency sold on the exchange could be funded back directly to the customer's private account instantly and then these funds may be withdrawn from the account which can be accessed worldwide via a Visa Debit Card issued on behalf of the customer, or other traditional means of fund transfer, SEPA, EFT, ACH, Swift, etc.
A Private Individual/Corporate International Fiat account in your control.
Support for more than 30 different Fiat Currencies; USD, JPY, EUR etc. transact in your own currency.
The option for a Visa Debit Card with the ability to withdraw funds at any ATM worldwide, purchase goods and services on line and pay bills.
Several open Exchange platforms to convert Fiat Currency to any Crypto Currency and vice versa.
Corporate Merchant accounts for Companies that deal directly with the Crypto Currency economy and are in need for a Fiat Currency account to manage their own operations

All of these services will be available for Dash users, merchants and service providers. For example, this will allow services like Node40 to have a safe and compliant way for users to move FIAT directly into running masternodes.

Coinapult Integration

As part of this project, Dash will be integrated to Coinapult. Coinapult is a Bitcoin wallet service provider. Coinapult offers online consumer and B2B services to a global market. It was founded in 2012 by Ira Miller and Erik Voorhees and was the first to offer bitcoin e-wallet services by email and SMS. In 2014, Coinapult was first to market with Locks, a service to help mitigate the price volatility of Bitcoin.
Ira Miller sold Coinapult in 2015 and remains an external advisor and provider of backend tools. Current CEO of Coinapult Gabriel Sukenik is leading the company to new frontiers, they recently integrated with Mycelium to offer Bitcoin locking services directly from the Mycelium app.
Coinapult will be integrating Dash to all of their existing services which include fully convertible USD accounts for DASH. Dash will be the first crypto-currency, other than Bitcoin, to be added to this service.
More partners are expected to join this consortium over time. For example, Mycelium is already integrated with Coinapult. With Dashs being added to Coinapult too, that brings us one step closer to convertible to USD mobile accounts.

Open Source Backend Tools Development

In order to make these partnerships and integrations possible, Deginner will develop the following open source tools for DASH.

· Multi-sig wallet and cosigner hosting (e.g. Deglet, Copay)

· Broker (e.g. Coinapult, Shapeshift)

· Bid/Ask exchange

· Traditional financial services (e.g. Crypto Capital, Vogogo)

· Market makers and liquidity providers