Bitcoin: Now It Will Be Easier to Use it To Stay in a Country Where it Will Be Easier to Use

As Bitcoin’s
prices rise again, the
always-on-the-verge-of-death yet very resilient stateless,
non-inflationary crypto-currency continues to find new
acceptance.

The latest,
from the Wall Street Journal:

Expedia, the big online travel site, announced on Wednesday it
will begin accepting bitcoin for hotel
bookings through its website, becoming the first major
travel-agency to take the digital currency. If the reception is
good, the company said it expects to bring bitcoin to its other
service lines as well.

“This is one of those ideas that seemed to have sprung from
three different places all at once,” said Michael Gulmann,
Expedia’s vice president of global product, explaining how the
company arrived at the decision. The company’s engineers were
starting to think about bitcoin, and the
company’s product and business developers were as well, he
explained. They also were hearing from customers.

The company is starting with hotels essentially as a test of the
system, he explained. “We want to start at a reasonable, small
place,” he said, and see if it will be feasible to expand it to
other parts of the business. If the trial works well, and if
customer support is there, he expects the company will start taking
bitcoin for other bookings as well. “Absolutely, absolutely,
absolutely,” he said.

Expedia, which is using Coinbase for bitcoin processing, won’t
hold the digital currency it receives, but that’s not “a statement
on bitcoin, pro or con,” Mr. Gulmann explained. Rather, Coinbase’s
default setting is for a daily settlement back into U.S.
dollars.

My article from last year, long before the huge rally in prices,
on how the U.S. government can try to hobble but
cannot stop Bitcoin.