Brian Foster about Mobile Products for Dash

Proven fact, your phone is the best tool to use Dash. We work a lot to deliver the best user experience when it comes to earning, spending or staking your Dash. Here’s an interview with Brian Foster, Head of Product at DCG where here reveals our plans for Dash mobile applications coming next year.

Tell more about yourself. How long have you been with DCG? What have you been doing before joining the team?

I have been with DCG for a little more than 4–½ years. I started as a Scrum Master and Project Manager for the Mobile and Drive teams but I also supported the mobile team in many ways as a Product Owner and ultimately moved into that role formally and then to my current role as Head of Product. I have been in the finance/investments/payments spaces for more than 20 years in many roles from business analysis, project management, product management and coding. I have degrees in Accounting and finance & Investments.

You’re Head of Product representing the Dash brand and you directly oversee the mobile wallets. We got the beautiful Dash Wallet for Android and iOS. What does the team plan for its future updates? Will the updates for iOS include Crowdnode and Coinbase and when?

We are working hard to align the features that we have implemented on Android with iOS. I expect CrowdNode and Coinbase to be released on iOS in Q1 2023. The search continues for more on-ramps and further integration with DashDirect.

Will Dash Wallet have DashDirect onboard in future?

Yes; I expect this to be released on Android in Q1 2023 and shortly after for iOS.

There are many talks about ‘socializing’ payments, i.e. sending and receiving Dash using names instead of wallet addresses. How is it technically possible?

When our upgraded Platform protocol is released, we will also be releasing DashPay for iOS and Android. DashPay will let you create usernames so that you do not have to make payments to those long addresses anymore.

What’s about security? Can my name in the app be compromised or hacked?

The teams at DCG put security at the top of our list of priorities. The mobile wallets will maintain their high level of security when DashPay is released. With usernames comes a new (but not unfamiliar) challenge when it comes to spoofs and hacks; you always want to make sure that you are paying to the correct username and not just someone who is pretending to be someone else. This is largely the responsibility of each user but we will try to add some features in the wallets to help prevent such situations.

Will there be any new features with platform release? Could you tell more about them?

Aside from usernames, Platform will allow for more data from the mobile wallets to be stored on the network. This will provide a better UX for users who want to retain their wallet settings, transaction metadata and more.

How do you think Platform release will affect mobile products, new merchants, and the Dash brand itself?

The Platform will bring many opportunities but in different stages. The MVP version is very data storage oriented and will provide the benefits I described for the mobile wallets but also for any other developer who needs to store data on the network. Another phase of the protocol may have different username types; this will provide many opportunities for custom features oriented towards consumers, merchants, etc. Smart contracts and Inter Blockchain Compatibility will further expand the network and the wallets into a full blown web3 solution.