Major Asian Ticketing Agency Accepts Bitcoin on Lightning Network

Vietnamese online ticketing agency Future.Travel now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) payments via the Lightning Network (LN), with funds being converted into local currency at the time of sale.

To enable LN-based Bitcoin payments, Future.Travel collaborated with Canada-based tech firm Neutronpay, which will provide Future.Travel its multi-currency merchant platform, according to an April 20 announcement. With the newly integrated option, the BTC transaction processing time will ostensibly be cut down to three to four seconds in most cases.

Eliminating fraud, reducing transaction processing time

Overall, Future.Travel has been supporting BTC payments for over six years and recently added other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ether (ETH) to its online payment methods. The company states that the LN integration will eliminate online fraud and associated credit card charge-backs.

Commenting on the development, David Watson, general director at Future.Travel, said, "The Lightning Network is the next step to reducing overheads of both cost and time."

Travel industry’s growing interest in crypto

The travel industry which — prior to the COVID-19 pandemic — was one of the biggest industries in the world, has been actively demonstrating interest in emerging technologies and cryptocurrencies in particular.

Last November, German airline Hahn Air began issuing tickets on the blockchain through a collaboration with a decentralized platform for the travel industry, Winding Tree. 

Travala, a service that lets its users pay for hotel stays with digital currency, has been steadily expanding its crypto payment options. Travala told Cointelegraph in January that “it is refreshing to know that each time we take a booking with cryptocurrency payments we avoid all the normal issues with traditional payment methods such as fraudulent payments and bad actor disputes.”