A travel website from South Korea with more than 50,000 hotels and other types of hosting facilities will start accepting 12 cryptocurrencies, thanks to a partnership between its operator and Bithumb, a major exchange of cryptocurrencies in Korea.
Pay more than 50,000 hotels with Crypto
One of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Bithumb, announced its commercial alliance with Seoul-based With Innovation Corp. on Tuesday. Thanks to this partnership, customers will be able to pay with cryptocurrencies for more than 50,000 lodging facilities, including hotels, motels, inns, motels, guest houses and campers. Specialized in small and medium-sized lodging facilities, the service operates under the brand that vaguely translates as “How are you?” The Hankyoreh elaborated:
The user can pay in a virtual currency held in his Bithumb account when booking a hotel, resort or motel. There are approximately 50,000 properties registered here [in Korea].
At the time of writing, Bithumb is the fifth largest encryption market in the world by transaction volume of 24 hours and the second largest in South Korea. The Upbit supported by Kakao Corp is currently the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the country.
12 Cryptocurrencies Supported
Bithumb explained that the 12 cryptocurrencies that the platform supports can be used: bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ripple, ether, ethereum classic, EOS, qtum, monero, litecoin, zcash, bitcoin gold and dash. The media quoted the exchange commenting:
We hope that the virtual currencies are used to make reservations and payments for national and international travelers, which will be of great help to increase the convenience.
Customers can book a room using the With Innovation applications and pay their bills with any of the cryptocurrencies they have in their Bithumb accounts, Zdnet Korea explained, adding that the applications have “approximately 2 million monthly net users”. Available on Android and iOS, the application in the Google Play store has more than 41,000 ratings, with an average of 4.4 stars. Meanwhile, the iTunes store gave it a rating of 4.7 stars on average, at around 5,700 users.
“The service will be presented in the first half of this year,” Yonhap told Bithumb, emphasizing that it will begin “as soon as possible.” The exchange added that it is “constantly discussing with several companies” to expand the use of cryptocurrencies in Korea. Bithumb was quoted by Green Economy:
Our country has become part of the global trend of spreading cryptocurrencies through the association with the largest hosting application in Korea.
