Argentina’s low-cost airline tokenizes tickets and accepts payments in USDC stablecoin

On Wednesday, September 21, Argentina’s Flybondi airline announced that its users would be able to buy tokenized tickets through Binance Pay, using the USDC stablecoin to complete the transaction.

The Argentine low-cost airline will do so through a strategic alliance with TravelX, a blockchain technology company that developed the solution.

With Wednesday’s announcement, Flybondi claims to have become the first airline in the world to offer tokenized airline tickets, or “NFTickets.” Users can transfer, resell at a fixed price, or auction them.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

According to the company, to buy tickets through “Travel.xyz,” it is necessary to “fund” a wallet of the platform with USDC (stablecoin anchored to the dollar).

WHAT IS A NFTICKET?

It is the “tokenization” of an airline ticket via blockchain technology.

They also allow the passenger’s name to be reassigned once purchased and make it possible for the ticket to be transferred or resold to another person easily up to three days before the flight departure date.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN BINANCE REMOVES USDC FROM ITS PLATFORM?

On September 5, Binance announced that it would convert its users’ deposits in USDC, USDP, and TUSD to its own stablecoin, BUSD.

When this media outlet asked TravelX about this issue, the company responded that “the platform architecture and technology base was conceived to support multi- and cross-chain and multicurrency”.

In other words, the solution will soon support other stablecoins, which can be used to buy Flybondi tickets.

According to TravelX, this alliance inaugurates a stage “where the travel industry and the new Web3 world converge to provide a much more flexible experience for travelers, generating at the same time new sources of income and a strong reduction of transactional costs for airlines”.

Regarding the alliance, Flybondi CEO Mauricio Sana commented: “We are delighted to use blockchain technology to give the greatest freedom to our customers”.

Juan Pablo Lafosse, CEO and co-founder of TravelX, added: “Very soon, we will see many other airlines follow suit”.

A FINTECH AND CRYPTO EXPERT’S VIEW

“With tokenization and the NFT revolution, the opportunities are unimaginable: any digital asset can a priori be decentralized and traded more easily,” Ignacio Carballo, Head of Crypto & Alternative Finance at Americas Market Intelligence, evaluated after the announcement.

The professor and researcher also considered that “FlyBondi and TravelX’s announcement is a disruptive step in what is already the main area in terms of volume within e-commerce in the hotel and tourism industry worldwide”.

And he concluded that the most “disruptive contribution would be the possibility that the ticket could be transferred or resold to another person. It will contribute to a new secondary market that will undoubtedly boost the industry.

With information from Bloomberg