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London-based Bitcoin exchange and wallet, SpectroCoin, announced on Monday (13 June) that Dash will be its first non-bitcoin cryptocurrency added to its services.

Dash, the sixth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation at roughly $54m (£38m), will be fully integrated with SpectroCoin by August, says SpectroCoin CEO and co-founder Vytautas Karalevičius.

This will include a Dash wallet, exchange, debit card and a Dash-to-fiat payment gateway for merchants, effectively extending SpectroCoin's four core products to Dash.

"Dash was chosen to be a first, because we consider it to be one of the top cryptocurrencies by usage for actual payments," said Karalevičius.

This is because of the "Dash community and technological implementations such as Instant[Send] for nearly real-time transactions confirmation", Karalevičius said.

According to head of finance at Dash, Ryan Taylor, the limit on InstantSend, which is the rebranded moniker of Dash's InstantX capability that allows for near-instant transactions, is 2,000 dash, or about $17,000.

Taylor added, "You could enjoy the speed of InstantSend on all but the largest transactions... and the rare few that might exceed that threshold would still be four times faster than Bitcoin."

Dash founder Evan Duffield said he was excited to have the support of legacy banking features within Dash's sphere.

"We're quite pleased to see some ahead-of-the-curve businesses fully utilizing our technology to do things like offering the ability to earn interest like a checking account or pay for anything online using a standard credit card," said Duffield.

Dash: Anyway, anyhow, anywhere

SpectroCoin has offered a range of Bitcoin-related solutions since 2013, from exchange services to a Bitcoin e-wallet that can be used to store the currency online.

The e-wallet and exchange are supported in more 150 countries and offer more than 20 methods for depositing and withdrawing funds, which consists of bank transfers and credit cards.

With a Dash wallet, users will be able to receive, spend and store Dash in the same way as they would use the Bitcoin wallet, while the Dash exchange will allow users to buy and sell Dash with a credit or debit card, bank transfer, cash and other options.

The Dash debit card will also allow the spending of Dash anywhere Visa or MasterCard is accepted.

Finally, the Dash merchant solution will allow shops to accept Dash and settle transactions in fiat currencies (including euros, dollars, pounds and more) through SpectroCoin's merchant API and various shopping cart plugins. This will function in the same way the company currently accepts Bitcoin payments.

SpectroCoin will also be running their own masternodes — the incentivized second tier of nodes operating in the Dash blockchain network — to offer proof-of-service consensus, according to Karalevičius.

"We will be sharing the reward from this service with clients storing Dash at SpectroCoin wallet," said Karalevičius, who added, Dash enthusiasts willing to use SpectroCoin cards can order a debit card before Dash integration is live as Dash will work with the company's current cards.

"Users will be able to spend their holdings from the first day of Dash integration," said Karalevičius.

Brandon Kostinuk is communications lead at The Vanbex Group, a professional services firm that provides consultation and marketing services to clients in the digital currency and blockchain space. Dash is a client of The Vanbex Group; SpectroCoin is not.

Bitcoin