AutoFair sells car in exchange for cryptocurrency

80 New Hampshire merchants accept Dash

AutoFair in Merrimack has sold the first car in the country in exchange for the cryptocurrency Dash. AutoFair sold a 2012 Ford Fusion for a payment of 36.9855 Dash, paid in full up front — a value of $7,560.

The transaction was processed by Anypay, a cryptocurrency point-of-sale app, which is widely used in New Hampshire, according to a press release from Dash. 

“The paying part was delightful,” said Derrick J. Freeman of Anypay, the car's buyer. “It was super easy. It was pretty amazing actually. Had I walked into the dealership with a stack of twenties, it would have been way more difficult. It just seemed right. Modern, efficient. It was also playful and fun whereas paper cash is way less fun. Tedious.”

AutoFair has over 300 cars available on the Merrimack lot for purchase with Dash, and is running a joint promotion with Anypay in order to sell additional vehicles. The next four cars sold for Dash will receive 10 percent “Dash-back,” which will be split evenly among the dealership and the customer, accounting for a 5 percent discount for the customer and a 5 percent bonus for the dealership. This amount is capped at a $1,000 total value per purchase. Freeman believes it will help incentivize additional merchants to accept Dash, as well as hold on to it instead of immediately converting to cash in the bank.

“Most businesses that started accepting cryptocurrency were smaller, more marginal businesses, and we see that larger and larger businesses are accepting crypto,” said Freeman. “What normally happens is a business will accept digital cash often knowing that they can convert it to bank money. Yet almost always they learn about the benefits and decide to keep the digital cash themselves.”

Nearly 80 merchants in New Hampshire accept Dash, according to the merchant listing site DiscoverDash, “a significant amount for a small, mostly rural state with a population under 1.5 million,” notes the press release, which also pointed out that “New Hampshire signed into law last year a bill explicitly exempting cryptocurrencies from certain financial regulations.”