Single-day increase of nearly 400%, CZ's "call" Travala originally had an annual revenue of 100 million dollars

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

After the last release of an image with the "ALT" text was interpreted by the market as "the imitation season has arrived," Binance founder CZ directly endorsed the "Travala" project last night. "I invested before the COVID-19 pandemic and the crypto winter, and I have continued to do so until now, BUILD."

Previously, the price of the Travala token AVA was only $0.74, with a market capitalization of about $40 million. Influenced by CZ's "clear call," market funds reacted quickly, and a large amount of buying surged in, causing the AVA price to briefly exceed $3.5, with a maximum increase of nearly 400%. As of the time of writing, the AVA price remains around $3.1, with a 24-hour increase of up to 306%.

Travala claims to be a crypto-friendly travel platform that supports over 100 cryptocurrencies for hotel and flight bookings. Odaily Planet Daily will analyze this project in this article.

Travala: Annual Revenue of $100 Million, "Dark Horse of the Travel Industry"

Founded in 2017, Travala is a global travel booking platform built on blockchain technology, supporting cryptocurrency payments as well as traditional payment methods. Users can book over 2.2 million hotels, flights from more than 600 airlines, and over 410,000 diverse travel activities in more than 230 countries and regions worldwide through the platform. The platform also collaborates to varying degrees with well-known travel platforms such as Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, Skyscanner, and Google Hotels.

Travala co-founder and CEO Juan Otero previously revealed in an interview that in the first quarter of 2020, the platform's total revenue was still less than $1 million, with an annual revenue of about $4.4 million that year. In recent years, Travala's business has grown rapidly, with the platform's revenue exceeding $22 million in the first quarter of this year.

On December 11, Travala officially cited media reports about "Travala is about to launch a Bitcoin reserve plan" and stated: "Travala has reached the milestone of $100 million in annual revenue, and the platform will continue to promote the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the travel industry, announcing the AVA token and Bitcoin treasury reserve strategy."

At 11:49 PM on December 12, CZ retweeted Travala's official tweet and directly revealed his identity as an "early investor in the project."

CZ is a clear "caller"

After CZ's Clear Support: AVA's "Market Cap Volatility Magic"

While many were still questioning "What exactly is the Travala project," a group of market-savvy traders had already found Travala's project token AVA on Binance and were pleasantly surprised to discover that such a "RWA project" with real business revenue, established for 7 years, had a circulating market cap of only $40 million.

After CZ's clear call, the AVA price quickly rose from $0.74 to around $1.5, but its project circulating market cap remained at $42 million, unchanged. More importantly, this token is only listed on Binance's spot market, making it impossible to short futures, and no other exchanges have listed this project.

AVA token information on the night of the 12th near midnight

As market buying continued to surge, the AVA price rapidly increased within just a few hours, breaking through $3.5 at 5 AM today. As of the time of writing, the AVA token price stabilized around $3.2, with a market cap growth to $307 million, ranking 363rd, and a 24-hour trading volume exceeding $560 million.

It is worth mentioning that the circulating supply and market cap of AVA are similar to those of the previously listed ACX token on Binance, also showing short-term drastic fluctuations in market cap data, suspected to be related to Coinmarketcap's statistical issues. Users will also see relevant risk warnings when they first enter the AVA token interface.

In October of this year, Binance explicitly introduced risk warning banners and pop-up notifications for projects on the platform, including AVA, CHZ, ENJ, etc. "Risk warning banners and pop-up notifications will also be introduced for the following tokens that have undergone significant changes in their economic models in the past 18 months."

AVA token Binance interface

Once a "negative example," it has now transformed into a "platform's hot item."

Behind Supporting Payments for 100+ Cryptocurrencies: A 7-Year Bumpy Journey

According to information verified by Odaily Planet Daily news, as early as December 2018, Travala officially announced the addition of XRP as a payment method on its platform. Subsequently, Travala began its long journey of "building a crypto-friendly platform that supports cryptocurrency payments" lasting about 7 years.

In December 2018, Travala successively announced support for DASH and EOS for hotel bookings;

In February 2019, Travala announced acceptance of BTC for booking 550,000 hotels, allowing users to travel to 82,300 destinations;

In March 2019, Travala announced acceptance of TRX and LTC for related booking payments.

Subsequently, BCH, BNB, XLM, and ADA also became payment options. In September of the same year, the platform officially announced its migration from the NEO blockchain to Binance Chain and began repurchasing and burning its native token AVA.

In January 2020, Travala announced support for stablecoin Tether (USDT) payments.

By July 2021, Travala's second-quarter revenue reached $9.8 million, accepting over 40 cryptocurrencies, Binance Pay, and fiat payment methods; cryptocurrency purchases accounted for about 70% of the platform's business.

In June 2023, Travala officially announced that its total revenue for May of that year was nearly $5.5 million, including accommodation bookings, flight bookings, activity bookings, and concierge service bookings; 78% of all bookings were paid for with cryptocurrencies. The proportions of payments made with USDT, ETH, BTC, USDC, and AVA (Travala.com platform token) were 24%, 8%, 7%, 5%, and 5%, respectively, while payments made with Binance Pay accounted for 13%, and other cryptocurrencies accounted for 16%. Additionally, orders from Binance Marketplace accounted for 3%.

In June of this year, thanks to the rapid development of the TON ecosystem, Travala officially announced support for TON payments. In September, Travala announced its integration with Solana, expanding to a third network beyond Ethereum and BNB Chain.

Travala CEO Juan Otero stated: "This integration will allow users to book flights, hotels, and accommodations using Solana-based assets (including SOL, USDT, and USDC). Users can also earn travel rewards of up to 10% of their booking value in SOL through their loyalty program, which previously supported BTC and Travala's native token AVA for reward payments." This is also why the Solana official account congratulated Travala in the comments section when it announced reaching the "milestone of $100 million in revenue."

Travala CEO

It is evident that since its establishment, Travala's journey of supporting crypto-friendly payments has steadily progressed: the increase in payment currencies, the expansion of booking regions and hotels, and the growth in the number of travel activities are all examples.

Additionally, users can enjoy varying degrees of discounts when booking travel on Travala, such as:

• Depending on membership level, users can enjoy direct discounts of up to 5%;
• Cryptocurrency cashback: After completing a trip, users can receive up to 5% cashback in AVA tokens. Platinum and diamond members can book through Travala.com and receive up to 10% cashback in Bitcoin, which can be used for future bookings or withdrawn from the platform;
• AVA payment discount: Users who pay the full booking fee with AVA tokens can enjoy an additional discount of up to 3%;
• AVA Smart rewards: All members except Smart Basic can earn annualized rewards of up to 6% in AVA tokens by completing specific tasks or using AVA on the platform each quarter.

The latest news is that the platform has launched an "invitation commission program", "helping others book with cryptocurrencies, allowing users to earn up to 5.5% commission on each booking order."

It is worth mentioning that the AVA token reached an all-time high of $6.45 in April 2021, then fell below $2 in December 2021, and gradually returned to around $0.7 in recent fluctuations.

As for whether it can return to new highs in the future, in addition to the support of key figures like CZ, it also depends on whether the continuous repurchase of AVA tokens and the BTC reserve plan can effectively boost market confidence.

Overview of Binance's Investments in Projects During the 2022 Industry Winter

According to information compiled from Rootdata and Binance platform, the projects that Binance Labs invested in before 2022 and whose tokens have been listed on Binance mainly include the following information. Excluding regular L1 public chains, DEX, and GameFi projects, the only tokens that can currently ride on the "CZ investment concept" are AUDIO, KAVA, CTK, ANKR, etc.

Considering the randomness of CZ's calls and the high risk of speculating on these tokens, please be sure to choose carefully and pay attention to the risks.

AI compiled relevant information for reference only