Binance has announced a $2.5 million investment in Australian travel startup TravelbyBit in a move to introduce a blockchain-based, point-of-sale (POS) payment system across major airports around the world. Travelers will be able to visit local merchants at select international airports and use mobile wallets like Coinomi and Dash Wallet for POS payments. There are also plans to add support for Binance's official mobile wallet Trust Wallet.
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"There is no better fit than being able to use your crypto when traveling, just after you land in a foreign country, where you may not have the local currency," Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, stated in the announcement.
Australia has been a relatively friendly region for cryptocurrencies for a while. The country has built a positive outlook on digital currencies starting from declaring Bitcoin along with other cryptocurrencies as legal tender[4], to its clear rules on exchange registration[5] and taxation[6] of crypto purchases.
Brisbane[7], known as the Mecca for all visitors to Australia, is the third largest city and the capital of Queensland. It welcomes millions of tourists and pulls in billions of dollars per year for the Australian government. Earlier this year, the Queensland government gave TravelbyBit a grant[8] to turn the state into a crypto haven for tourists. The startup used the funding to deploy its POS system to over 200 merchants nationwide. The TravelbyBit platform has also been integrated[9] into Brisbane’s airport — making it the first airport in the world to accept cryptocurrencies.
In correspondence with Bitcoin Magazine, Wei Zhou, CFO at Binance, stated his enthusiasm with the investment and said Binance was looking forward to rinsing and repeating
