Wirex Launches Travel Booking Platform Enabling Payments in Bitcoin and USDT

Web3 money app Wirex said Thursday (March 27) that it launched a travel booking platform that offers reduced rates on hotel stays and cash-back rewards when using a Wirex card.

The new platform, Wirex Travel, also offers exclusive deals and allows users to pay with bitcoin, USDT or traditional currencies, the company said in a Thursday press release.

These new offerings join the benefits Wirex already provides to travelers, including zero foreign exchange fees, interbank exchange rates and crypto rewards, according to the release.

“With Wirex Travel, we’re helping users unlock incredible hotel deals while earning generous rewards when they pay with their Wirex card,” Wirex Co-founder Pavel Matveev said in the release.

Wirex’s digital payments platform, which enables users to store, purchase and exchange multiple currencies, has more than 6 million customers across 130 countries, per the release.

Blockchain technology offers transformative potential to address the current inefficiencies that plague cross-border payments, including high fees, slow settlement times and poor transparency, by streamlining processes and reducing costs, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence, Solana and Solana Foundation collaboration, “Can Blockchain Solve the Cross-Border Payments Puzzle?”

The report found that permissioned decentralized finance (DeFi) could lower transaction costs by up to 80% compared to traditional methods; automated recordkeeping and smart contracts could enhance transparency and efficiency; and stablecoins, pegged to fiat currency, could mitigate volatility concerns.

Wirex launched its decentralized payment method, Wirex Pay, in August, saying this blockchain-based payment method allows users to make transactions using cryptocurrencies at more than 80 million merchants in more than 200 countries.

In December, the company added two new stablecoins — VNX Euro (VEUR) and VNX Swiss Franc (VCHF) — to its digital payments platform, saying this enables users to spend these currencies directly through their Wirex cards.

“This addition allows our users to effortlessly spend stablecoins in real life, whether for daily purchases, remittances or managing their digital asserts,” Matveev said at the time in a press release. “At Wirex, our goal is to make digital currencies as convenient and versatile as traditional money, and VEUR and VCHF are another step toward achieving that vision.”