Australian Crypto Startup Invites Steve Wozniak to ‘Digital Currency [Holiday] Town’

An Australian travel tech startup has invited Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to Agnes Water and Town of 1770, the country’s first digital currency towns.

Brisbane-based TravelbyBit extended the invitation after the American inventor expressed his interests to travel the world using nothing but bitcoin, as reported by local publication Micky. The company, which enables businesses to accept bitcoin and helps travelers explore the world on cryptos, recommended Wozniak to use their portal to book flights to the beach towns in Australia’s Central Queensland region.

In a broader context, the tweet helped people understand the cultivating ecosystem of cryptocurrencies. Wozniak’s willingness to travel on cryptos reflect the demand of a majority of the crypto holders, i.e., to use bitcoin to make purchases in real-time. At the same time, TravelbyBit’s inclination to meet the demand by enabling merchants to accept cryptos completes the circle of one of the Bitcoin’s primary use cases.

On top of all, the tweet allows people to see the willingness of merchants and consumers to switch to alternative payment mechanisms that are cheaper and more hassle-free than their traditional counterparts. Agnes Water and Town of 1770 is a prime example displaying how users are open to the ideas of decentralized payment networks like Bitcoin. The towns have more than 30 businesses that accept bitcoin as one of the payment methods.

Traveling with Cryptos

If one looks at a case study of an average tourist traveling from, say, New York to Queensland, he will be required to either get an expensive traveling card, that would rip off 3-5 percent commission off every transaction, or exchange his/her US Dollars to Australian Dollars via over-the-counter exchanges. The latter would also charge high commissions for a task as mere as converting the fiat.

Bitcoin certainly solves this issue by becoming a global token that reduces intermediaries from the conversion process. One can carry it anywhere in a digital format, pay merchants by paying a nominal transaction fee charged by the network and exchange it for other fiat currencies at comparatively cheaper rates than OTC cash exchanges.

TravelbyBit CEO Caleb Yeoh said that traveling with Bitcoin is no less than moving with one global currency.

“If you travel the world you have to deal with multiple currencies, the exchange rate can be confusing, sometimes you struggle to find ATMs, and sometimes you get swindled by money changers,” he explained.

What’s more, Brisbane International Airport also began accepting cryptocurrencies across terminals in a world-first at merchant locations via point-of-sale systems developed by TravelbyBit.

Wozniak, should he accept the invitation, could accelerate a gradually-moving crypto revolution in his own way.