Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News
Trip.com, the overseas version of Ctrip, is quietly entering the stablecoin payment arena.
On December 25, 2025, Foresight News learned that Trip.com's overseas version has launched stablecoin payment functionality for global users, currently supporting two dollar-denominated stablecoins: USDT and USDC. Two sources close to Trip confirmed this information to Foresight News.
After downloading and logging into Trip.com in Vietnam, the author successfully booked a hotel in Nha Trang, Vietnam, using USDT in less than 10 minutes.
More notably, after comparing prices from multiple local hotels, it was found that paying with USDT on the Trip.com App for some hotels was even cheaper than using the official Ctrip website or traditional payment methods.
Ctrip's Overseas Version Already Supports USDT/USDC
On December 24, 2025, the author booked a hotel in Nha Trang, Vietnam, using USDT on the Trip.com overseas app and successfully purchased a flight ticket from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City with USDT on December 25th. The author has already checked into the hotel.
The author discovered that the flight ticket purchased with USDT on Trip.com was approximately 18% cheaper than the one bought on Ctrip. The hotel booked with USDT saved about 2.35% in costs.
Trip has enabled USDT and USDC payments
Currently, Trip.com's crypto payments support multiple public chains including Ethereum, Tron, Polygon, Solana, Arbitrum One, and TON.
During the actual payment process, the author noticed the involvement of another payment company, Triple-A. This company provides crypto payment-related services to Trip.com. Public information shows that Triple-A is a licensed crypto payment institution headquartered in Singapore, primarily offering payment gateway and settlement services for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
Furthermore, the author learned that Triple-A is also collaborating with Singapore's internet giant Grab as a technical partner for crypto payment channels, enabling GrabPay users to directly top up their wallet balances using crypto assets within the Grab app.
Additionally, the author noted a detail:
When booking a hotel on Trip.com using USDT, detailed personal information is not required; only a name and email are needed to complete the order. This means that for hotel bookings using USDT, the platform can hardly obtain users' complete private information. Of course, purchasing flight tickets still requires filling in information such as nationality, passport number, and phone number—this is a compliance requirement of the aviation industry itself.
Privacy and data security have become major societal issues.
Just this month, the Ctrip Group encountered a relatively significant 'public trust incident'. In December, Ctrip Group signed a marketing cooperation agreement with the Cambodia National Tourism Board in Shanghai. After the news was announced, it raised concerns among some users about local security, telecom fraud risks, and personal information security, leading to numerous screenshots of users uninstalling the Ctrip App on social media.
In many regions overseas, users are far more sensitive to privacy and information security than in the domestic market. This might also be an important practical background for Trip.com's push for stablecoin payments.
For travelers worldwide without international credit cards, stablecoin payments offer a new path. According to public information, there are approximately 125 to 130 million credit card holders globally, with even fewer holding international credit cards. This means over 80% of the world's population cannot smoothly use the international credit card system.
Credit cards are not merely 'payment tools' but an entry point to the credit system, yet most people globally are not within this system. In many countries and regions, such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and India, many individuals cannot be incorporated into the credit system, making it impossible for them to own credit cards.
Stablecoin payments are providing these individuals with a global payment path that bypasses the credit system.
Of course, the practical issues with stablecoins still exist: transaction fees remain relatively high and unstable.
During the actual payment process, the author found significant differences in fees between different wallets. When paying via Binance to Trip.com's USDT收款码, a fee of 1 USDT was required, with a minimum transfer threshold of 10 USDT; whereas using Bitget Wallet, the first transaction showed a 0 fee, but the second showed a fee of 2.39 USDT, with no minimum transfer amount set. These differences may be related to the public chain used (Tron) and its fee mechanism.
Why Are Giants Entering the Stablecoin Arena?
Ctrip Group is not the first company to enter the stablecoin赛道.
Previously, several global internet and payment giants have clearly布局 stablecoins, including Ant Group, JD.com, PayPal, Stripe, Meta (Facebook), Grab, and TADA.
Several banking giants have also publicly stated their entry into the stablecoin field, such as Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.
Some实体 manufacturing companies are also integrating stablecoin payments. Public reports indicate that some BYD dealers in Bolivia already support USDT payments; manufacturing companies like Toyota and Yamaha also accept stablecoin settlements in overseas markets. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has publicly confirmed this.
Advertisement for cooperation between BYD dealers and USDT
Internet giants,实体 manufacturing giants, and banking giants are all deploying stablecoins... their use cases for stablecoins vary.
An obvious trend is that payment giants like PayPal and Ant Group are no longer satisfied with merely being stablecoin payment gateways but hope to directly become stablecoin issuers. PayPal has already launched PYUSD; Ant Group is also推进 the application for a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin license. The boundary between payment institutions and currency issuance is being reshaped.
For实体 manufacturing enterprises like BYD and Toyota, there is no ideological judgment about stablecoins or crypto payments, only one practical question: which method are users more willing to pay with.
Fiat Currency Continues to Depreciate, Stablecoins Become a "Practical Solution"
In Bolivia, the official fiat currency, the Boliviano (BOB), depreciated against the US dollar by 65%–137% from late 2024 to mid-2025. It can be said that Bolivia's fiat currency depreciates every day.
In this environment, any company operating overseas cannot long bear the exchange loss from settling in the local currency. USDT has gradually become the de facto payment tool locally.
Bolivia is not an isolated case but a phenomenon playing out simultaneously in many countries worldwide.
The author visited Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries this year and found that the cumulative depreciation of these economies' national currencies against the US dollar over the past three years generally exceeded 80%; over a five-year period, the currencies of Iran, Turkey, and Egypt have all depreciated by more than 200% against the dollar.
Currency depreciation is evolving from a 'local risk' in a few countries to a broader, more structural global phenomenon.
At a black market in Tehran, Iran, the author witnesses a currency exchange
More残酷ly, in the aforementioned countries, the speed of local currency depreciation has long surpassed the income growth rate of ordinary people. In real transactions, monetary disorder is directly changing payment methods.
This is precisely why consumer internet platforms like Trip.com Overseas and Grab; payment giants like PayPal and Ant Group; and实体 manufacturing companies like BYD and Toyota are beginning to experiment with introducing USDT and other stablecoins in different markets.
The world is partially crumbling, with some regions becoming unbalanced first.
When the existing financial system can no longer perform the functions of stability, settlement, and trust, a new economic system is pushed to the forefront by reality.
The new economic system is not designed but is 'forced' out by reality where the old system fails. The spread of stablecoins is not because they are ideal, but because in some places, they are already the least bad option available.
