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Latvia’s flag air carrier, airBaltic, has reaffirmed its pro-cryptocurrency approach by enabling customers to make bookings with other digital assets, including Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE0 and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Those tokens have joined the list of four USD-pegged stablecoins and the first-ever cryptocurrency – Bitcoin.
DOGE and ETH to Be Used for Air Travel
AS Air Baltic Corporation, also referred to as simply airBaltic is Latvia’s flag carrier that has also displayed a pro-digital asset approach for years. Back in 2014, the company became one of the first airliners to accept payments made with the primary cryptocurrency for its flight tickets.
Earlier today, airBaltic announced the addition of a new set of coins allowing customers to choose between more tokens when booking flights.
Those include arguably the most well-known Bitcoin hard fork – Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap – Ether (ETH), and the surging in popularity – Dogecoin (DOGE).
As a result, the company now accepts a total of eight cryptocurrencies. Apart from the four mentioned above, the others are four stablecoins pegged to the US dollar – GUSD, USDC, PAX, and BUSD.
The latest addition comes with the help of crypto payment service provider – BitPay. However, it’s worth noting that unlike Tesla, which recently enabled BTC payments for its vehicles and said it will retain them in BTC, airBaltic will convert the assets into fiat currencies.
When users choose the desired service on airBaltic’s website, the prices will be displayed in euros, but when they pay for them, the crypto asset selected will be converted into euros automatically at the current exchange rate determined by BitPay.
“As an innovative airline, we always strive to search for ways to improve the customer experience starting from the booking process. Over the years, 1,000 clients have used the payment option, which may not seem like a lot, but still offers passengers a unique payment option hard to find elsewhere.” – said airBaltic CEO Martin Gauss.
Dogecoin’s Growing Acceptance
The meme coin has been rapidly increasing in popularity recently, perhaps led by the continuous social media endorsement from Tesla’s Elon Musk. Following dozens of his pro-DOGE tweets, the token received attention from other celebrities, such as rapper Snoop Dogg.
The snowball effect was on, and DOGE became a sensation among renowned individuals. Dogecoin even reached the NBA as the Dallas Mavericks enabled payments with it.
To the question of why his team has added DOGE as a payment option, the club’s owner, Mark Cuban, emphatically said “because we can” at the time.
This growing usage of DOGE has also led to a significant price increase. The asset is up by more than 800% since the start of the year and registered a new all-time high last month.
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