Book hotels with USDT and save 18%, Ctrip International's overseas version strongly promotes stablecoin payments

Author: Joe Zhou, Foresight News

Trip.com, the overseas version of Ctrip, is quietly entering the stablecoin payment track.

On December 25, 2025, Foresight News learned that the overseas version of Trip.com has launched stablecoin payment options for global users, currently supporting USDT and USDC, two USD-pegged stablecoins. Two individuals close to Trip confirmed this information to Foresight News.

After downloading and logging into Trip.com in Vietnam, I completed a hotel booking in Nha Trang, Vietnam, using USDT in less than 10 minutes.

More notably, after comparing prices of several local hotels, I found that paying with USDT on the Trip.com app sometimes results in prices even lower than on the official Ctrip website or traditional payment methods.

The overseas version of Trip.com now supports USDT/USDC

On December 24, 2025, I booked a hotel in Nha Trang, Vietnam, using USDT on the Trip.com app, and on December 25, I purchased a flight ticket from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City with USDT, both showing successful payments. I have already checked into the hotel.

I found that the flight ticket purchased with USDT on Trip.com saved about 18% compared to buying the same ticket on Ctrip. The hotel booked with USDT saved 2.35% in costs.

Trip has enabled USDT and USDC payments

Currently, Trip.com’s crypto payments support multiple public blockchains including Ethereum, Tron, Polygon, Solana, Arbitrum One, TON, and others.

During the actual payment process, I noticed another payment company, Triple-A, involved. This company provides crypto payment services for Trip.com. Public information shows that Triple-A is a licensed crypto payment institution based in Singapore, mainly offering crypto and stablecoin payment gateways and settlement services.

Additionally, I learned that Triple-A has partnered with Singapore’s internet giant Grab as a technical partner for crypto payment channels, enabling GrabPay users to directly recharge their wallet balances with crypto assets within the Grab app.

Furthermore, I noticed a detail:

When booking hotels on Trip.com using USDT, users only need to provide a name and email address to complete the order, without filling in detailed personal information. This means that in hotel scenarios, USDT payments allow platforms to almost completely avoid collecting users’ full privacy data. Of course, for flight purchases, users still need to provide nationality, passport number, phone number, and other information—due to aviation industry compliance requirements.

Privacy and data security have become major societal issues.

Just this month, Ctrip Group experienced a significant “public trust incident.” In December, Ctrip Group signed a marketing cooperation agreement with the Cambodia National Tourism Authority in Shanghai. After the announcement, some users expressed concerns about local security, telecom fraud risks, and personal data security, leading to numerous screenshots of uninstalled Ctrip apps on social media.

In many overseas regions, users are far more sensitive to privacy and information security than in domestic markets. This may also be an important practical context for Trip.com to promote stablecoin payments.

For travelers worldwide without international credit cards, stablecoin payments offer a new pathway. According to publicly available information, approximately 125 million to 130 million people worldwide have credit cards, and even fewer hold international credit cards. This means over 80% of the global population cannot smoothly use the international credit card system.

Credit cards are not just “payment tools,” but gateways to credit systems. However, most people worldwide are not part of this system. In many countries and regions—such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and India—many people are excluded from credit systems, making it impossible for them to have credit cards.

Stablecoin payments are providing a way for these people to bypass traditional credit systems and make global payments.

Of course, the practical issues with stablecoins still exist: transaction fees remain relatively high and unstable.

During actual payments, I noticed significant differences in fees across different wallets. Paying to Trip.com’s USDT collection code via Binance requires a 1 USDT fee, with a minimum transfer threshold of 10 USDT; using Bitget Wallet, the first transaction shows zero fees, while the second requires 2.39 USDT, with no minimum transfer amount. These differences may relate to the blockchain used (Tron) and its fee mechanisms.

Why are giants rushing into stablecoins?

Ctrip Group is not the first company to enter the stablecoin space.

Previously, many global internet and payment giants have clearly laid out plans for stablecoins, including Ant Group, JD.com, PayPal, Stripe, Meta (Facebook), Grab, TADA.

Several banking giants have also publicly announced their entry into the stablecoin field, such as Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and others.

Some manufacturing companies are also integrating stablecoin payments. Public reports show that BYD has supported USDT payments at some dealerships in Bolivia; Toyota, Yamaha, and other manufacturing firms are accepting stablecoin settlements in overseas markets. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has publicly confirmed this.

BYD dealer ad collaborating with USDT

Internet giants, manufacturing giants, and banking giants are all deploying stablecoins… Their use cases vary.

A clear trend is that payment giants like PayPal and Ant Group are no longer content with just being payment gateways for stablecoins but aim to become stablecoin issuers directly. PayPal has launched PYUSD; Ant Group is pushing for a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin license application, reshaping the boundary between payment institutions and currency issuance.

For manufacturing companies like BYD and Toyota, there is no ideological judgment about stablecoins or crypto payments—only a practical question: which method do users prefer to pay with?

Fiat currency continues to depreciate, making stablecoins a “practical solution”

In Bolivia, the official fiat currency, the Bolivian Boliviano (BOB), depreciated against the US dollar by 65%–137% from late 2024 to mid-2025, meaning Bolivia’s legal tender is losing value every day.

In such an environment, any outbound company cannot sustain long-term settlement losses in the local currency, and USDT has gradually become the de facto payment tool locally.

And Bolivia is not an isolated case; this phenomenon is happening simultaneously in many countries worldwide.

This year, I traveled to Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries, discovering that their local currencies have depreciated relative to the US dollar by over 80% in the past three years; over a five-year period, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt’s currencies have each depreciated by more than 200% against the dollar.

Currency depreciation is shifting from a “localized risk” in a few countries to a broader, more structural global phenomenon.

Witnessing a currency exchange in Tehran’s black market

More harshly, in these countries, the speed of local currency depreciation far exceeds the income growth of ordinary people. In real transactions, monetary disorder is directly changing how people pay.

This is why platforms like Ctrip’s overseas version, Grab, and other consumer internet services; payment giants like PayPal and Ant Group; and manufacturing companies like BYD and Toyota are beginning to introduce stablecoins like USDT in different markets.

The world is experiencing partial collapse, with some regions leading the imbalance.

When existing financial systems can no longer sustain stability, settlement, and trust functions, a new economic system is pushed to the forefront by reality.

This new economic system is not designed but is “forced” into existence where the old system fails. The spread of stablecoins is not because they are ideal, but because, in some places, they are the least bad option available today.