Opinions and views expressed are solely that of my own for entertainment purposes. Always perform your own research on all topics including local regulations. Not Financial advice. Disclaimer: I hold some of the tokens mentioned in this article.
It’s been well over a year since I wrote my last article on AVA and Travala. During that time, the company has undergone significant changes, attracting a wave of new attention.
In the crypto space, such ventures are often referred to as “projects.” However, I believe it’s fair to say that Travala has moved beyond that early stage to become a fully-fledged, proven operating company.
This article is fairly lengthy so grab a drink and step into what has been occupying my mind and I hope you will see why I'm so bullish on the future.
This article will be divided into two sections: Travala as a company and its massive impact on the crypto industry, and the AVA token.
To truly understand the tokenomics behind AVA, one must first grasp the linkage between the Travala.com travel booking site and its ecosystem.
It’s almost impossible to cover everything; however, these are just a few of the sections that stand out to me personally. Once again, remember this is just my personal perspective, and there may be other functions that are really attractive to others — such as the Concierge subsection, which is a customized service for “whales” booking values over $100,000, including private jet bookings. This is well outside my personal experience.
Travala.com — Booking Platform:
Unlike many “projects” in the crypto space that seem to intentionally confuse you with whitepapers full of complex and advanced tech (That are yet to have a working product and valued at millions for some reason) you couldn’t even explain to your grandmother if she asked, this is simple: Travel booking.
The site is robust and has a strong community and company backing it, it powered through a global pandemic as a travel site during lockdowns and a brutal Crypto Bear market. It’s hard to imagine a worse scenario but it’s still going which makes me feel like it’s one of the safest holds long term out there.
Yes, it’s simple, but that’s the beauty of it. Mass adoption has already been achieved by the likes of Booking.com, which is estimated to generate over $21 billion in revenue in 2024 alone.
Travala.com introduces “WEB3” components to something everyone already knows and loves. Much like the transition from Ford Model T combustion engine cars and paper maps to modern vehicles with sat nav, air conditioning, and other comforts — the traditional travel booking sites work “fine.” However, Travala brings modern advancements the world didn’t know it wanted until they have it and soon wont be able to live without.
The site itself was established in 2017 by a highly capable team that continues to grow, expanding beyond technical developers to include support operations teams and customer service.
They have already encountered and resolved one of the biggest challenges that hardly any crypto projects face: managing the real-world operations of a functioning product.
Most of the crypto world hasn't even taken this into consideration yet, what happens if they do reach mass adoption. How are they going to support thousands of users with some highly technical product, how will users manage wallets , tokens?
I know my mum struggles to know the difference between the a browser and “a google”, yet people expect the masses to create some self custody wallets and start signing transactions. We are a long way off this in the real world.
Travala has passed this stage and is in its scaling stage.
Simplicity meets function and tech:
Travala.com as mentioned is ultra simple to use, just like any other booking site with some Web3 magic in the back.
Type your date and location and find your trip.
When you go to book, you get your first hint that this site might be something different as you see the “Payment Method” featuring a massive array of options, including direct links to powerhouses like Binance Pay, Crypto.com, WeChat Pay, and other crypto wallets.
Looking at the supported crypto options (https://www.travala.com/payment-options), the list is absolutely massive and ranges from all the big names down to some lesser-known tokens. Below is only a small snapshot of the supported tokens.
Regardless of how you feel about Travala or the AVA token, you’d be silly to dismiss its significance and contributions to the whole crypto industry. We should all try to support sites like this that provide legitimate utility and strengthen the entire space. It’s providing millions in volume monthly to Crypto transactions for real world payments.
This site provides a real use case for a massive array of tokens and legitimizes the entire crypto ecosystem. Now, you finally have an answer to the classic question, “What can you actually do with your SHIB?” at family holiday dinners: “Well, it can be used to book around 2.2 Million travel products.”
After choosing your payment method, it’s all pretty straightforward. Anyone who has used Booking.com, Expedia, or similar platforms will know how to enter their details, press “next,” and take their trip!
You’re probably also thinking right about now ? Where does the AVA token come into play? Skip to the second section if that’s what you are interested in.
How many people are actually using it ?
Join the Travala Telegram, and it’s an endless flow of bookings being pumped out by the booking bot — an incredible sight to see. A working product with a non-stop flow of paying customers.
One of the community members has made the following document (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zj5sfalvtAmKjdb_uVSD3XIammY0xpzUJaWmIQ6LjNg/edit?gid=945429563#gid=945429563) which is extremelty detailed and shows monthly revenues, users, lockups etc. The most imporant metric you probably want to see right now is the below.
Revenue has been steadily growing and just hit $100 Million USD for this year (Yet to be officially updated in the December report).
2024 revenue will surpass $100 Million USD!
This is insanity. There are very few crypto companies outside of exchanges and trading pools pulling these kind of numbers.
What about partnerships and investors?
It’s hard to list them all but some of the biggest global companies include :
Skyscanner:
Expedia:
Google hotels:
Kayak:
Binance:
Honestly the list goes on and on and on. Check it out for yourself:
By this stage I hope we have established this is a seriously impressive company with real paying customers, making revenue. Is simple to use and offers benefits to the whole crypto world without being overly complex and hard to understand.
AVA — Token:
CoinMarketcap Link:
Something you should understand straight off the mark is that the AVA token also has a dedicated team to it that works in partnership with the Travala.com site and has dedicated whitepapers.
The AVA token has a lot of really cool use-cases you can read about for ease of the dear readers I want to focus on the below which all contribute to reduction of circulating supply and increasing demand.
- SMART
- Givebacks
- Buybacks
Smart program
The SMART program is a membership-style program allowing users to lock AVA tokens for access to exclusive perks and benefits. Membership levels are upgradable by locking more AVA tokens, with higher levels providing better rewards.
It’s important to note that users retain ownership of their AVA tokens, which are only subject to a 30-day locking period for withdrawal. This structure combines flexibility with meaningful incentives, making it a cornerstone of the AVA ecosystem.
One of the most important things here is people locking up their tokens for these rewards are removing them from the circulating supply to get benefits on the travala site.
As of the time of writing this (Mid-December) a significant percentage of the supply is locked up and I expect this to only continue to grow.
8,845,050 AVA is locked up in the SMART Program.
Some of the perks for locking up can be seen below:
PS: The Quarterly travel drops for the top NFT members are wild! All worth thousands and entry the major events around the world including flights, accommodation etc. That’s out of scope for this particular document but all contributes to AVA lockups.
Another quick mention to the discounts and soon to be released “AVA Deals” (No direct ETA) but this will massively increase demand for AVA as there are direct deals for the usage.
Givebacks
Now we get into what I consider the “bread and butter” of the tokenomics.
“Givebacks: similar to the concept of cashbacks, AVA givebacks enable users to receive a percentage of their purchases on partner platforms back in the form of the AVA token. This percentage can increase with higher status tiers.” — https://www.avafoundation.org/ava-2-0-whitepaper/
As mentioned previously users on Traval.com are auto-created an internal wallet address when they create an account and make a booking. At the end of the booking they get a giveback up to 10% depending on levels.
EG: A top level trip valued at $1000 will get $100 worth.
Personally I’m actually more excited here about the LOWEST level which gets 2%. ($10 back from a $500 Booking).
I’m here for the mass adoption micro-payments and human sentiment.
I’m going to take my mother here as an exmaple: She is not super tech savvy but knows how to book a holiday. She uses the site just like any other booking platform and pays with her creditcard and automatically gets $AVA back as a reward. Shes does not know and does not care to try and sell the token. There is no way in 1000 years she is going to sign up to an exchange, complete KYC, learn how to trade to sell off $10 worth. This is the mass adoption I am looking for.
So if you think about it, A user makes a booking and gets a small amount of AVA back. This gets “trapped” in their wallet and 99% of the time sits there to be forgotten or used on a future trip. I hope you are starting to visually understand the supply lockage.
According to (https://adage.com/article/75-years-of-ideas/missing-point-100-billion-loyalty-points-unclaimed/309183) “$100 Billion in Loyalty Points Are Unclaimed”. This is the human element you need to start thinking about in my opinion. Users getting rewards and never spending them and getting locked in their wallets.
The site is currently generating thousands of these monthly already.
Buybacks
Linking the the “Givebacks” section above. The AVA foundation will purchase AVA on the open market (EG: Binance exchange) to the value of giveback each month.
More revenue, more givebacks, more buybacks.
Are you paying attention yet?
Last Month the AVA foundation purchased from the open market 182,000+ $AVA. This is in addition to the AVA Paid out via givebacks!
Public transaction:
Putting it all together:
- Real world company, backed by industry giants
- Experienced team operating for many years.
- Making millions in monthly USD revenue.
- Regardless of what payment method is selected users can get AVA givebacks, which also results in AVA being purchased from the market
- Revenue and use count is growing steadily
- Huge numbers of AVA are locked up in the SMART Program
- Massive growing list of use-cases.
Summary:
I’ve been a fan of AVA and Travala for many years now . Not just as a holder but an active user of the site.
I’ve barely scratched the surface here and would encourage anyone to deep dive if they are interested in this long established travel site.
Once again this all my personal thoughts but I think this has all the makings of becoming a household name and one I'm eager to watch grow.
Even if you have zero interest in the site or token at this stage still and don't want to spend your crypto what have you got to loose by booking on the site using your credit card and getting AVA or Bitcoin rewards?
Support the crypto ecosystems you are a part of.
Join the Telegram if you’d like to learn more: https://t.me/avafoundation
Markets:
This article is not meant to serve as financial advice and is only my personal perspective. Never invest or purchase anything you are not willing to lose and manage your own risks.
With that in mind, should you be interested in getting some AVA, it’s trading at the below along with many other exchanges:
CEX:
Binance -https://www.binance.com/en/trade/AVA_USDT
Bybit — https://www.bybit.com/en-US/trade/spot/AVA/USDT
Kucoin — https://www.kucoin.com/trade/AVA-USDT
MEXC — https://www.mexc.com/exchange/AVA_USDT
Gate — https://www.gate.io/trade/AVA_USDT
DEX:
▪️ AVA (AVA) — ETH — Uniswap
📄 CA: 0xa6c0c097741d55ecd9a3a7def3a8253fd022ceb9
▪️ AVA (AVA) — BSC — Pancake
📄 CA: 0xd9483EA7214FCfd89B4Fb8f513B544920E315A52
▪️ AVA (AVA) — SOL — Rad
📄 CA:
G8LfyGVsjsLzetJ5RWZVAhMo4H9cb58ET1Z6gEZJQdPM
Sources:
https://www.avafoundation.org/
https://www.phocuswire.com/travala-skyscanner-crypto-integration-booking
