Australian Brisbane is becoming the foremost city using cryptocurrency. The local airport introduced payments in cryptocurrencies in its outlets and in addition, "Australia's first digital currency town" appeared five hours north of Brisbane.
Brisbane Airport (BNE), in partnership with the Australian start-up TravelByBit, introduced the possibility of using the cryptocurrency for payments at all retail outlets in its terminals, it announced in January.
After two-week testing, bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies began to be accepted in 30 stores. After training the staff, the new option will be available at other airport outlets.
JUST IN: Jason Lee at Forte Cafe in Brisbane Airport — one of the first merchants who proudly accepts #NEM $XEM as payment! Kudos to @TravelbyBit! pic.twitter.com/0JwjOnQesi
— NEM (@NEMofficial) June 4, 2018
According to Caleb Yeoh, the co-founder and CEO of TravelbyBit, bitcoin “is perfect for travel, there's no exchange rate issues, or risk of credit card fraud."
"We're just trying to build a real world use case for cryptocurrency," – he explained.
At the same time, local Agnes Water realtor created "Australia's first digital currency town" 5 hours north of Brisbane. Previously, Agnes Water 1770 was known for being considered the place for Captain Cook's landing in 1770.
With its rank as the first digital currency city in Australia, he received this due to the maximum concentration of stores in Australia that accept cryptocurrency.
It is worth noting that the population of the city is slightly more than 2000 people. In addition, to earn their this title, it was necessary to create only a few places where they accept the cryptocurrency.
Local real estate agent Gordon Christian was the first to think about using bitcoin. The client asked him how to process a bit transaction but Christian could not answer him, and realized that in this direction, it is necessary to work. He shared his idea with several local entrepreneurs.
"We started from the ground up, shared it with a couple of businesses, and they were straight on board … I guess they were international travellers themselves and had heard of these types of payments... Initially we had a good 10 businesses that just said, 'Fine — let's go for it'," - Christian said to ABC news.
The idea has spread. TravelbyBit and the NEM Foundation helped local businessmen in implementing the plan.
By Ekaterina Ulyanova