The cryptocurrency world in 2018 is off to great start, regardless of where you are at in this crypto world, one can't deny that lots of development is happening across all of the cryptocurrencies out there.

The overall cryptocurrency price shot up in late December to early January, with a massive correction (predictable) to happen mostly in February and March of 2018.

The middle of April finally we see the bottom out of the cryptocurrency market cap, and now we are seeing a slow up climb in cryptocurrency prices across the board.

It got me thinking of how the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies is really catching on and on with more businesses and more daily functions of my everyday life.

I wanted to outline below the businesses and cryptocurrency related websites I use on a DAILY basis now:

A. Cheapair.com

Cheapair started out only taking Bitcoin, but looks like just recently, they've added some other cryptocurrencies to the mix that they accept including Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Dash.

I use them for booking my airline tickets, since Expedia, the other website I use only takes Bitcoin for "hotel" stays, but not for airline tickets.

So far, I've had no issue with the last 4 airline bookings I had with Cheapair.

B. Expedia.com

Expedia takes only Bitcoin for only "hotel bookings", and not for flights. I've tested this out when I tried booking a flight and paying in Bitcoin, but the tabbed option is not available for flight bookings. 

I've used Expedia many times to book hotel bookings, and haven't had any issue with actual hotel bookings, BUT I've had major problems with getting partial refunds.

Their customer service center does not understand how Bitcoin refunds work, and I had to go through 10 different phone calls, only to get to the point where they sent me the Bitcoin refund, but to the wrong email address ... they sent to an email address associated with a Coinbase account that I couldn't open because Coinbase doesn't operate in that U.S. state (Hawaii).

Then Expedia customer service tried to send refund amount to a credit card on file ... however, by U.S. law, refunds can't be sent to a credit card if the original charge wasn't there in the first place. 

So basically ... I'm NOT getting my refund back from Expedia. And to Expedia I say for that one incident, fuck you.

Otherwise, if you want to book "hotels" with Expedia to use Bitcoin, do so, but just note that if you need to get partial or full refund amount, brace yourself for poor customer service and lack of knowledge of how to get your Bitcoins back.

C. Overstock.com

For products, I use Overstock.com to buy any physical products I need.

I really was hoping that Amazon.com would catch on and accept cryptocurrencies, but they've purposely have been vague and anonymous with their stance on cryptocurrency acceptance, so til then ... Overstock.com has my business since I can use my cryptocurrencies to make product purchases.

They were the earliest to accept not only just Bitcoin, but a slew of other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum, Dash, NEM, Litecoin, and Monero. I believe they are the one of "very few" that accepts Ethereum as a form of payment since ETH really isn't a token for exchange, rather an investment in its blockchain technology.

Overall, I haven't had any problems using Overstock.com to buy products with cryptocurrencies.

D. Presearch.com

Ever since Presearch came out with their search page and being able to get 0.25 PRE per search up to 8 PRE per day, I've exclusively now done my searches via Presearch.com

My browsers used to default to Google.com ... but now, it defaults to the Presearch.com page and I can conveniently do my searches still on Google, but also on plethora of other websites I popularly use including: Twitter, Amazon, Tumblr, and more.

We'll see when they allow people to start trading PRE on outside exchanges, because at moment, you can't take PRE off the site.

E. Steem Community and SteemIt

Well not surprisingly, the Steem Community and SteemIt website are websites that I frequent on daily basis, writing interesting posts as well as finding other people from around the world to connect.

I shut down my Facebook profile 2 months ago, because I was finding that I was spending a lot more time on SteemIt, and not on Facebook. Since Facebook has Messenger, I no longer needed the Facebook profile portion, so I deactivated my Facebook profile (but Messenger is still usable, just so I can stay in touch with my friends around the world).

SteemIt is my go to choice for social media post writing and sharing.

F. Steepshot

I had heard about Steepshot, and how it's similar to Instagram, so upon checking out Instagram and wanting to download the iOS app, found out originally, only Steepshot could work on Android.

But just recently, they've developed iOS app, so now Steepshot is on iPhone ... so go download it if you got iPhone.

Steepshot indeed is similar to Instagram in setup, when you post, it goes directly to your SteemIt profile as well, since Steepshot is connected to your Steem account.

The desktop website and app still needs work, but like any new project, the kinks will be figured out as we go.

Love the Steepshot idea, and looking forward to using it on consistent basis to share my photographs!

What businesses do you frequent that accept cryptocurrency as payment?

Any other crypto projects that I should be aware of?

Let me know!