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Bitcoin payments for passport services? You read that, right! In a first, a nearly 50-year-old U.S based passport and visa processing firm, Peninsula Visa, will now be accepting BTC for select passport services. Coinbase’s crypto payments arm, Coinbase Commerce, will be assisting the company in the same.
Peninsula Visa Is Now Accepting Bitcoin For Passport Services
In an official press release, Peninsula Visa announced its plan to integrate bitcoin payments for selected passport services. Customers will be able to avail of the company’s ‘BTC benefit’ during the course of the next 12 months. Coinbase Commerce has come out to help Peninsula Visa with secure processing of all bitcoin payments.
Speaking of specific passport services, the following have made the list. For now:
- Passport Renewal
- Name Change
- Second Passport
- Second Passport Renewal
Speaking on this development, Evan James, Chief Operating Officer at Peninsula Visa, said:
Never before has anyone been able to pay for a U.S. passport using a digital currency. We’re thrilled to be the first company in the nation offering this alternative payment method to our valued customers. As we look forward to a post COVID world, one that we believe will be more digital than ever before, offering travelers the ability to pay via Bitcoin feels like the right move at the right time.
Not A First For Airlines/Flight Services Accepting BTC, Crypto Payments
Last year August saw Norwegian business tycoon Bjørn Kjos and his family set up a bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange called the Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX). As per reports from a prominent Norwegian daily, the magnate’s son Lars Ola Kjos was deep in the crypto market in 2017, before the beginning of the year’s massive bitcoin bull run.
Ola Kjos bought BTC worth 3.5 million Norwegian Krone (NOK) at the time. As per the roadmap, the Kjos family intended to expand their crypto exchange services to other countries and facilitate bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments for airline tickets for passengers of the Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS). As of date, NAS is Scandinavia’s largest airline and Europe’s third-largest budget airline.
While the above happened in August 2019, Russia’s largest state-owned bank and the second-biggest airline partnered this August to sell airline tickets for cryptocurrency tokens. As reported by CryptoPotato, S7 joined hands with Sberbank to leverage blockchain technology for making flight ticket sales.
Sberbank reportedly came up with a technology that allows companies to create their own blockchain applications and smart contracts. S7 uses it to process ticket sales and had already invested close to $500,000 back in 2017. The airline company already debuted its blockchain-based ticket sales in July that year, and in 2019 saw the number exceed $1 million.