Cashback shopping portal Rewards.com has announced that it now allows users of its cashback reward program to specify that they want to redeem their “cashback” via cryptocurrency (DASH) instead of fiat currency.
In case you haven’t used a cashback shopping site before, here is how they work. When you go via one of these shopping portals to the website of an online retailer that has partnered with one of these portals, you get a percentage of your total purchase back. This “cashback” can usually be redeemed in one of several ways: money sent to your bank account, money sent to your PayPal account, or some kind of gift card.
In the case of Rewards.com, which has thousands of online retailers participating in its cashback reward program, until now, you could only get cash back via PayPal. But now, there is an extra redemption option: the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Dash (DASH) whose name stands for “Digital Cash”.
Here is a screenshot from the Rewards.com home page to give you an idea of how you get to one of these online retailers:
Here is a screenshot showing what happens once you specify DASH as the redemption option:
The co-founder and CEO of Rewards.com, Todd Rowan, explained that this partnership with Dash meant that people who had no previous exposure to cryptocurrencies could get a more gentle introduction to cryptocurrencies in this way as opposed to going to a crypto exchange and buying some cryptocurrency there:
“The remarkable aspect of this partnership is we are introducing people to cryptocurrency in a non threatening way. Let’s say you shop at Macy’s, Groupon, or Hotels.com you can earn a portion of their total purchase in cryptocurrency. The program works just like any points program. You can keep your rewards in the ecosystem just like you would with any type of reward point or redeem it for products, travel, restaurants, or gift cards. The earnings from Rewards.com will help you to start to learn about how to use cryptocurrency, including trading it on the market for Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. Rewards.com takes us one step closer to global mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency.”
This integration is only the first step, though. By the end of 2018, Rewards.com hopes to allow DASH to be fully accepted as a form of payment on its website, allowing all kinds of items to be purchased directly with crypto instead of fiat. This is what Bradley Zastrow, who is the member of the Dash team in charge of business development, had to say about this:
“This is the next step for Dash in our goal of achieving widespread mainstream adoption. The partnership with a high caliber business like Rewards.com lowers the barrier to entry by eliminating the complication for those unfamiliar with digital asset exchanges. No longer do people need to buy, mine or trade for Dash. With this partnership, everyday consumers can earn Dash simply by shopping, which has never been done before on this platform. We believe our new alliance will encourage consumers to explore alternative options for payments and bring added value to loyalty rewards programs, particularly for an increasingly tech savvy audience.”
Currently, DASH is accepted as a form of payment in around 1200 businesses around the world. If you look at the “Discover Dash” website, you can find out where these merchants are located; interestingly, around 217 of these are located in Venezuela, a country that is currently in the grip of one of the worst cases of hyperinflation in history.
A few days ago, as reported here, American online travel agency CheapAir announced that it was now accepting Dash (DASH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC), in addition to Bitcoin (BTC), as forms of payments.
Featured Image Credit: Photo by Daria Nepriakhina via Unsplash
