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Latin American Travel Agency Despegar Begins Accepting Crypto Payments

Latin American Travel Agency Despegar Begins Accepting Crypto Payments

Latin American Travel Agency Despegar Begins Accepting Crypto Payments

Teaming with Binance Pay, the travel company will initially accept crypto in Argentina, with plans to roll this option out to additional countries.

Teaming with Binance Pay, the travel company will initially accept crypto in Argentina, with plans to roll this option out to additional countries.

Teaming with Binance Pay, the travel company will initially accept crypto in Argentina, with plans to roll this option out to additional countries.

AccessTimeIconMar 7, 2023, 7:53 PM
Updated May 9, 2023, 4:09 AM
(Shutterstock)
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Despegar (DESP), a leading online travel agency in Latin America, has started accepting crypto as a form of payment in Argentina in partnership with Binance Pay, both companies announced Monday.

Despegar is the first online travel agency in Latin America to accept crypto, the statement said, adding that payments will be made through Binance Pay. Inswitch, a cloud-based finance-as-a-service platform, will be responsible for converting crypto to fiat.

While this payment functionality is initially available only in Argentina, Despegar – which operates in 20 markets in Latin America – said it plans on rolling out the service to other countries in the future.

“We know that the world of cryptocurrencies is already a reality and, therefore, from this alliance, all Despegar customers in Argentina will be able to approach this universe in a friendly way,” Paula Cristi, general manager of Despegar for Argentina and Uruguay, said in a statement.

In September, a marketplace for tokenized travel products, TravelX, went live with the offering of inventory of the low-cost Argentine airline Flybondi. A month later, Latin American crypto exchange Lemon integrated with TravelX.

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CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.

Andrés Engler was a CoinDesk editor based in Argentina, where he covers the Latin American crypto ecosystem. He holds BTC and ETH.


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