Crypto transactions leading credit cards in online purchase race

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused serious disruption to the way business is done on the street and online. Not all businesses are benefiting from the shift to online trading. Some businesses whose clients are unbanked or involve cross border transactions are disadvantaged as banks lock down credit card accounts to combat an increasing number of fraud related issues associated to cards. In some cases whole countries are restricted for transactions given the high volume of fraud issues. For some card users they suddenly find a credit/debit cards they use for overseas subscriptions or to buy online are no longer being accepted.

Some consumers have figured out the way around the problem is to pay using Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. With global acceptance of Bitcoin (BTC) as a means of value transfer, along with major investment funds buying large volumes of Bitcoin validating BTC as an asset, the public has started to shift their view on cryptocurrency. Before this recent shift some merchants were already accepting crypto as a form of payment. The bet on early adoption of the new technology is paying dividends as the shift begins to move toward crypto as form of payment acceptance at the point of sale.

‘We have been accepting Bitcoin for seven years,’ says David Watson of Future.Travel, ‘and online for about five years. It has always been a slow but reliable channel for sales. What we have seen since Covid-19 is that the channel is growing and in over the last few months has overtaken conventional payments for online settlement.” Watson said that “The traditional travel market is dead, what is left is the corporate must travelers, family repatriations, and family crisis travel. The exception to that broad brush is domestic traffic in some countries and Intra Europe travel. These last 2 market groups have seen substantial growth in the use of Bitcoin as means of payment.”

The recent purchase/adoption of BTC as an asset by Nasdaq-listed Microstrategy (USD$425m) and Stone Ridge Asset Management (USD$115m) appeared to open the gates for online transactions with October and early November settlements seeing triple digit growth rates as traditional banking pathways slowing due to economic and fraud/risk related contractions. Watson continued “Future.Travel’s online sales are down year on year as is the norm for the OTA community. What has been the stand out is our Bitcoin transaction continuing to grow and overtaking traditional payments. September saw Bitcoin/Lighting payments @ 72% of online sales and moving to close to 90% in October. November is tracking ahead as well. Total booking volumes are way down, but the upward trend for Bitcoin/Lightning transaction is very clear.”

 Future.Travel has used Italy based https://Tinkl.it to provide Bitcoin based merchant services adding Canadian based https://NeutronPay.com in early 2020 for Lightning Network merchant services to facilitate Lightning Bitcoin transactions. https://Future.Travel is a Vietnam based bricks and mortar/ online IATA registered travel agency.

Future.Travel
15/6 Le Van Huan
Quan Tan Binh
HCMC, Vietnam

press contact: Pham Thi Hue +84903820285

Future.Travel is a Vietnam based bricks and mortar/ online IATA registered travel agency.

This release was published on openPR.