Today people have many needs: they need a roof over their heads, clothes, groceries, television, Internet, books, the opportunity to visit bars and cafes, cinemas, museums and excursions, and much, much more. In 2022, you can pay for all this not only with fiat, but also with cryptocurrency. In the article we will tell you how you can meet the basic needs by paying only with digital money. And we have also prepared a cheat sheet for you on cashing out cryptocurrencies.
Crypto rent
Let's immediately look at examples of services that help those who want to pay with cryptocurrency to do it easily anywhere in the world. You can find suitable housing rental options, for example, on Travala. The service works with real estate objects in 230 countries.
The company was founded in 2017, and by 2022 it had grown from a small startup into the largest project cooperating with Binance and Booking.com.
Travala interface.
In the payment settings, along with fiat, you can choose cryptocurrencies: popular bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, as well as less popular coins such as Klever. You can also pay for your reservation with a local Travala AVA-token.
Some of the cryptocurrencies available for payment on Travala.
We can take a look at how the platform works with an example. Let's say we need to book accommodation in New York with payment in bitcoins, and our schedule is January 10 to January 20, 2023. To do this, we should select BTC in the payment settings. The system will display available options that can be sorted by cost, rating, and other criteria.
Options offered by Travala under our conditions.
After choosing a suitable option, all that is left is to book it. You can pay, for example, using Binance Pay or Crypto.com.
Travala payment options.
When booking on Travala, it is important to read the booking rules first. In some cases, estate owners do not refund money when a user cancels a reservation.
Popular Travala alternatives:
🔸 Rentible: the platform offers narrow geography, but it has a user-friendly interface at the same time.
🔸 Livly: сrypto payments here are only available in the mobile app.
You can also find an offer to rent accommodation for crypto on social media. Here is an example of one from Facebook for someone who wants to rent apartments in Thailand:
On Facebook, you can find rental offers with payment in a variety of cryptocurrencies: most owners prefer bitcoins and ether, but there are also those who agree on much less popular coins.
If you have made an agreement with the seller to pay with cryptocurrency, it is important to find out the options that will help secure the deal. If you are not sure about the safety of the deal, you should not transfer cryptocurrency to a stranger. Otherwise, they may pocket your coins. It will not be easy to prove the seller’s guilt for a number of reasons, including the lack of a full-fledged regulatory framework for digital assets in some countries.
How to buy real estate with cryptocurrency
Buying real estate with crypto is more complicated. You should register such deals, which means that the parties need to provide documents confirming the transfer of ownership and payment. You can't use crypto legally in the majority of countries. But in some jurisdictions, including El Salvador, watchdogs allow people to pay with crypto. At the same time, legal loopholes allow crypto payments to be marked as barter.
You can also find offers to buy accommodation with cryptocurrency on social networks. For example, here is the post for someone who is looking for a villa to buy in Thailand:
There are platforms that specialize in selling real estate for cryptocurrency, and one of them is Cryptorealestate. Developers put the real estate price in crypto next to the price in dollars. To get more information, the client should fill out an application under the offer. The platform operates in Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe, and Asia.
The Cryptorealestate interface.
Some platforms are targeted at certain countries. For instance, here is a website for people who are searching for real estate in the UAE.
It is also possible to pay for rent or purchase an apartment with crypto cards. Such cards are usually linked to the user’s exchange account. The system converts coins into local fiat during the payment process. Such cards are available for Crypto.com, Binance, and Coinbase users. Unfortunately, crypto cards have limited geography because of the lack of a legal framework for cryptocurrencies in some countries.
How to pay for food with crypto
There are several approaches to buying food with cryptocurrency.
🎁 Gift cards. Bitpay users from the United States and a number of other countries can pay for food with cryptocurrency using gift cards. The company’s geography is here. Bitpay's offer includes delivery services, restaurants, fast food cafes, and other options for buying food with cryptocurrency. For example, you can pay with gift cards at Burger King or Boston Market.
Part of the list of restaurants where you can pay with cryptocurrency using a Bitpay gift card.
💳 Crypto cards. Let's repeat: this is a plastic card linked to the user's crypto exchange account, which instantly converts digital money into local money. In this case, it is better to clarify in advance whether the cafe or restaurant accepts this payment method
👛 Wallet transfer. Another option to pay for your food with crypto is to find a cafe or a shop that accepts digital assets on a special map. Here are two of them: Сoinmap and bitcoin.com. They cover all countries.
Let’s use Сoinmap to make an example for New York. The map shows that there are 21 places, such as cafes, grocery stores, and other in the city where you can pay with cryptocurrency:
Here are some grocery stores all around the world where you can pay with crypto: USAFoods, MannVend, Edmonton Grocer, Whole Foods, Product of Italy, La Vita Pazza, Konzum.
Before visiting any place, it is worth clarifying in advance whether they accept cryptocurrency now. Sometimes the data of Сoinmap and other aggregators diverge from reality.
How to pay for shopping with crypto
Some clothing stores accept payments with PayPal and Venmo. Both services support crypto payments. For instance, you can pay with PayPal on ASOS or use Venmo to pay for shopping on Amazon.
You can also buy clothes with cryptocurrency using crypto cards and Bitpay gift cards. The method is suitable for many stores, including Adidas, American Eagle, and Bottega.
Part of the list of stores where Bitpay gift cards work.
More opportunities for someone who wants to pay for clothes with crypto are available on Etsy. It is a global online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods.
How to pay for services via Bitcoin
You can find services for crypto on social media. Here, for example, is a beauty salon in Zurich that does nail extensions and offers other beauty treatments for BTC, USDT, ETH.
You can also find services for crypto on YouTube. We found a massage salon that accepts bitcoin.
Another way to find a service for crypto is to google them as a ‘pair service + pay in crypto’. You can also add the name of the country into the search request. This method, for example, helped us to find vehicles for rent, cleaning, car repair and much more.
How to pay for leisure time activities with cryptocurrencies
To find activities, you should visit Travala again. Let's say we are interested in organizing leisure activities in New York on the arrival day – January 10, 2023 with payment in Dogecoin. To do this, you need to fill in the destination, date, select the desirable cryptocurrency, and press the «search» button. After that, the system will offer leisure options including excursions, bike tours, cruises, and more.
How to cash out crypto
Unfortunately, it is still not easy to do without fiat at all today, so sometimes members of the crypto community have to transfer their digital assets into ordinary money. There are several ways to do this.
👥 P2P-platform. You can use popular crypto exchange services, including Binance and Bybit. It is important to clarify the exchange parameters. If we are talking about foreign currency, you must first acquire a local bank card. If this is not possible, you can exchange cryptocurrency for cash.
🏦 Crypto-ATM. In many countries, including in Turkey, they are extremely common. You can find one on the crypto.com map. First of all, it is important to clarify whether the machine supports the cryptocurrency you have and whether it is possible to cash out coins through it.
Crypto ATMs are perfect for those who want to receive cash immediately. Unfortunately, you can rarely find a machine that can offer to cash out large amounts of money instantly. Therefore, to cash out, you may need to bypass several ATMs.
💱Online-exchange. You can find one using BestChange. Select the country and read the platform's reviews to pick the best one. The method is also available for someone who wants to exchange crypto for cash.
💻 Crypto exchanges. The method is for someone with a local bank card and a trading platform account. Pick the platforms that have already proved efficient, such as Binance, Bybit, KuCoin, Huobi.
Unfortunately, you can’t use decentralized exchanges to cash out crypto. Such platforms, as usual, can’t offer crypto-fiat and vice versa transitions.
🤝 Private deal. You can find offers to cash out cryptocurrencies on crypto forums and in crypto community chats. We do not recommend using this method because it can be unsafe. It is worth resorting to such schemes only in one case: if you have evidence of their safety.
To be short
Cryptocurrencies can buy almost anything today: from real estate to a cup of coffee. Information about places where digital assets are accepted can most often be found on aggregators that are special maps that show the location of cafes or shops.
It is possible to pay with crypto even at stores that do not accept this type of payment. Crypto-fiat bank cards and gift cards are suitable for this.
Analysts are betting on the crypto community's growth. And we hope that soon cryptocurrencies will become as widespread as traditional money.
This article is not an investment recommendation. The financial transactions mentioned in the article are not a guide to action. Itez is not responsible for possible risks. The user should independently conduct an analysis on the basis of which it will be possible to draw conclusions and make decisions about making any operations with cryptocurrency.
