How We Booked Our SBC Summit Hotel and Paid in Crypto: Interviews with Katrin and Egor Frolov

How we booked our SBC Summit hotel and paid in crypto: Katrin from PassimPay on using Nomadz

For our trip to SBC Summit in Lisbon, PassimPay event manager Katrin booked the team’s hotel through Nomadz and paid for the stay in crypto through PassimPay, our crypto payment gateway. We asked how she chooses where to stay on a work trip, who helped her with the booking, and how payment and check-in went.

1. Katrin, what do you do at PassimPay, and how long have you been organizing trips?

I run events and team travel, both business and personal trips. I’ve been doing it for over five years: transfers, flights, hotels. My main job is to leave people enough time for the conference and for the meetings around it.

2. Which trip needed a hotel this time?

SBC Summit in Lisbon. In my experience, finding a place to stay there during a big conference is hard. You’re juggling room availability and where everyone on the team needs to be, and the good options go fast.

3. What’s the hardest part of picking a hotel for a team at a conference?

Getting everything to fit at once. You need enough free rooms for the team and a location close to the venue. But the meetings, side events and networking happen all over the city. A typical day: conference in the morning, maybe a short break back at the hotel, then out again to evening meetings. The less time people spend getting around, the easier it is to stick to that schedule.

4. Why did you decide to try Nomadz?

Crypto payments are our business, so paying in crypto is routine for us. Travel was the exception: we usually had to pay some other way. Once we learned Nomadz can accept crypto payments for hotel bookings, we wanted to test it on a real trip.

5. How did choosing a hotel on Nomadz go?

I contacted a Nomadz manager, and he showed me how the site works and how to finish a booking. After that, choosing was much easier. It’s important to me that when a question comes up, there’s a real person I can ask.

6. Did you compare the price and conditions with other platforms?

Yes. Don’t stop at the price in the search results. Check the total on the last step and the terms for that specific room. Nomadz had one more plus for us: it can accept crypto payments directly, so we didn’t need a separate conversion to fiat just for this purchase. We also got 5% off the booking, saved with travel points, and earned Nomadz loyalty points after paying. If you travel for work often, it adds up.

7. What did you like most about the Nomadz experience?

Paying for the hotel in crypto, first of all. I also liked that the manager guided me through a booking process that was new to me, and once he explained it, the site was easy to use. And for a team that goes to events regularly, bonuses on trips look useful too.

8. How did the payment through PassimPay go?

After I picked the payment method, I got a QR code and a wallet address. I forwarded the address to our finance team, they sent the payment, and the booking went through. PassimPay is a crypto payment gateway, so I roughly knew what to expect here. The process was clear, and I didn’t have to convert to fiat myself and then pay for the hotel by card.

9. How did you get the confirmation, and what happened at check-in?

After paying, I got a booking voucher. My colleagues showed it at the front desk and checked in quickly. A status in a system isn’t enough. I want the team to arrive with a confirmation they can hand over at reception, and the voucher was exactly that.

10. What would you advise other teams booking hotels for conferences?

Look at Nomadz as one option, especially if your team is fine paying in crypto and travels to events a lot. Before you pay, compare the final price, the location and the cancellation policy. On repeat trips, check which discounts and bonuses your account actually has. If you’re booking for ten or more people, contact a manager early and confirm there are enough rooms. With a big group, even one missing room is a real headache.

Paying for a hotel in crypto: Egor Frolov on why crypto payments are becoming normal

Katrin shared what it was like to book and pay for a hotel in crypto. Egor Frolov, Chief Sales Officer at PassimPay, looks at the same experience from a business perspective and explains why accepting crypto matters to merchants.

You work with crypto payments every day. Why use them for your own trip?

I’ve been into crypto since 2019. Even then a few services let me pay with it, and I always liked the idea of spending crypto instead of letting it sit in a wallet.

When I found out Nomadz lets you book a hotel and pay in crypto right at checkout, I wanted to try it on our work trip. I don’t mean the usual route, where you swap crypto for regular money yourself and then pay by card. We paid for the booking straight from a crypto wallet. To me that’s another step toward crypto being used at scale, and credit to Nomadz for making it possible.

What did this experience show you as someone who works in sales?

Every audience wants something different. For people who already hold crypto, it’s often simple: they want to pay with what they have, without exchanging or withdrawing it first.

I also like that you don’t have to enter card details. But as a salesperson, what I notice most is the gap: someone holds crypto and still can’t spend it directly. They came for a hotel room, and any extra step before paying just gets in the way.

Why do you think interest in crypto payments is growing?

I see it in PassimPay’s own analytics: our transaction count keeps rising. Some merchants have been with us for more than four years. At one point almost no payments were coming through for them, and now the numbers are climbing. Many altcoins look weak on price, but people use crypto for real settlements more often than before.

Stablecoins, USDT included, are now easier to buy through apps and services. Companies pay partners and employees with them, and once a company already holds stablecoins, spending them is just the next thing you want to do. Of course, PassimPay’s data doesn’t cover the whole market, but for me the growth in practical use is clear.

Why are travel bookings a good example of crypto in use?

I wouldn’t single out travel.

Any business can do this, as long as its customers actually want it. Being able to accept crypto payments gives the customer one more option, and gives the business a chance to close a sale that might otherwise fall through.

A hotel just makes the benefit easy to see. You have a specific trip, specific dates and a service to pay for. In that situation crypto is simply a way to handle an ordinary task.

What does a business need to get right for customers to pay this way again?

If you decide to accept crypto payments, a “Pay with crypto” button on the site is only the start. The whole process has to be clear: how much to send and on which network, what happens after the transfer, when the payment is confirmed and when the buyer gets the product or service.

Confirmation has to come fast, and the order status should be visible on the site. This is where your crypto payment gateway either gets it right or costs you the repeat purchase.

After one booking, can you say crypto has become a normal payment method?

Not yet.

Plenty of people are still skeptical, and one booking doesn’t prove mass adoption. But the direction is already visible: even Visa and Mastercard are building stablecoin settlements into their infrastructure.

Cards aren’t going away tomorrow. Still, businesses should watch how their customers’ needs change and be ready to offer a convenient choice of payment methods.

What was your main takeaway?

It showed me again that paying in crypto can be a simple part of an ordinary purchase. As more services like Nomadz appear in different industries, more people will start spending crypto as well as holding it.