Travala.com Now Listing Ripple and Dash In to Its Platform

According to news reports, the AirBnB of blockchain, Travala is now offering to book over 550,000 hotels in 210 countries with two new cryptocurrencies: Ripple and Dash.

Previously the Travel booking platform includes Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar Lumens, True USD and its native token AVA.

Ripple is one of the very few crypto-assets that have thrived with a growing list of partnerships and listings despite harsh market conditions.

It has managed to integrate itself with Skrill as well as a rental service company Omni.

According to its Senior Vice President of Product Management, Asheesh Birla, one of its secret for its growth is its team’s pragmatic attitude towards fiat.

The native token of Travala.com AVA however has unable to escape the general downturn trend in crypto this year.

It is currently trading at around $.13 which is around 63% lower to its initial price of $0.35 earlier this year. This is despite the relatively growing success of the platform.

Western Union Claims It Is Crypto Ready

According to a recent press release the representatives of Western Union, the company has been reported to be ready and interested in adopting blockchain technology as well as cryptocurrencies.

The president of Western Union Global Money Transfer, Odilon Almeida, stated that the company maybe in a unique position to make cryptocurrency usage and adoption mainstream.

It has been reported in the past that Western Union (WU) has been testing blockchain technology with the help of Ripple for cross-border remittances revealing their not so positive assessment of the new technology as something that is not that efficient yet and still too expensive.

Testing has been reported to be ongoing and the company has expressed interest despite initial assessment.

Almeida states that the company is ready to adopt cryptocurrencies when they are supported in the jurisdictions where they operate.

He reveals that his company is already operating in over 130 countries worldwide.

If market requires them to support crypto then it should not be much of an issue to them since technology-wise crypto is just one more currency to them.

Thousands Of Pump-and-Dump Groups Uncovered By Researchers

A recent research study conducted by the Social Science Research Network has revealed that there are thousands of pump-and-dump groups on popular social messaging apps.

These groups are engage in fraudulent practice of encouraging unwitting investors to buy an asset to inflate its price artificially and then selling it when the price gets high enough.

The said phenomenon is not new and has been around for quite some time now.

The study suggests that these groups are thriving and in fact quite profitable at lease for those who sell at the top of the pump.

Researchers in the study has identified around 4,818 pump-and-dump attempts between January and July this year with data coming from Telegram and Discord.

The paper also states that pump-and-dump schemes is more effective and more lucrative if lesser known coins are used compared to more dominant coins in the eco system.

However it must be noted that bitcoin is not immune to such activities as the paper have identified 76 Bitcoin (BTC) pump-and-dump phenomenon in telegram and 6 on Discord.

Colombia Becoming Hotspot For Bitcoin ATM

According to news reports Colombia is fast becoming the central hub for ATM bitcoin machines in Latin America.

The American ATM network Athena is aggressively expanding its coverage in the said country with about 17 ATMs in five cities in the country.

However, it is interesting to know who exactly are using this machines and why has the American company expanded so much in the territory compared to other Latin American States.

It has been revealed that there are two main users of the bitcoin ATM the first one being are the Venezuelans who are living in the country.

It has been no secret that Venezuela is currently experience on of the worst inflation rate in any other country in the world right now with no site of solution from the problem that is why a lot of its citizens in the country or abroad has looked at an alternative currency as a store value or means for exchange.

The second type of people to use the bitcoin ATMs are Colombian Freelancers.

They use the ATM machines to convert the cryptocurrency payments they receive into fiat. It seems that the country is home to a lot of freelancers working in tech or marketing industry.

The Bitcoin ATM machines support several top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash, (BCH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ethereum (EHT).

Dash Makes Another Milestone In Cryptocurrency Adoption In Venezuela

It has been reported that Dash-powered smartphone KRIP has sold more than 66,000 KREO mobile phones.

These Phones are enhanced with applications from the Dash ecosystem which enable users to use Dash-related services using the said mobile phone.

According to Dash CEO, Ryan Taylor, they were expecting to on-board about 10,000 users every month with this initiative and with 53,000 sold on retail in just three months they are exceeding sales expectations.

The initiative was a product of the partnership of Dash and Kripto Mobile Corporation, a South American company that manufactures mobile phones that come pre-equipped with Dash-ecosystem, Dash wallets and Bitrefill app.

To give more functionality to the already featured-packed mobile phone, both companies also partnered with DiscoverDash.com to develop a mobile app version of the website which has been included in all existing and future KRIP phones.

Dash has made its intention of making Venezuela as a staging point to expand adoption across the region.

The help to further expand cryptocurrency adoption in Latin America the crypto project launched Dash Text which provices an SMS-based cryptocurrency transaction service for its users cutting the need for Smartphone and high speed internet connections.

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