Airbnb users want to pay for lodging with cryptocurrencies. What does that mean?
The day before, Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky created a poll on his Twitter account asking what innovations should be coming to his platform in 2022. A short time later, Chesky received more than 4,000 responses, with the majority of followers wanting the integration of cryptocurrency payments for Airbnb services. The platform itself is one of the largest and most popular services for finding and renting accommodation. We tell you more about the importance of the event.
As a reminder, popularisation of cryptocurrencies may not end at such platforms, but again reach the state level. This announcement was made the day before by El Salvador's President Nayib Buquele. He predicts that Bitcoin will be recognised as official tender in at least two more countries in 2022.
Meanwhile, in El Salvador, it has been possible to pay in bitcoins for various goods and services since the seventh of September last year. Read more about Buquel's predictions in a separate article.
Where cryptocurrencies can be used
According to the platform’s CEO, his company is already working on some of the new products and will definitely “consider user suggestions”. The integration of cryptopayments into Airbnb is a very likely development, with the company considering “several ideas about adding tokens” to the list of available payment methods.
Exactly which coins the app will support is unknown. We assume that if the option is introduced, Airbnb will be partnering with payment companies, which means it is likely that the coins to interact with the platform will be the same as usual. We're talking Bitcoin, Etherium, Lightcoin and Bitcoin Cash. At the very least, this seems likely given that these cryptocurrencies are particularly common in services even today, though LTC and BCH are not in serious demand.
Chesky’s Twitter poll
According to Decrypt, this isn’t the first time Chesky has openly mentioned cryptocurrencies. In September 2021, in one of his interviews, he stated that Airbnb customers have been asking the service to integrate cryptopayments for several years in a row.
At the time, Chesky recalled that before the founding of Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, its CEO Brian Armstrong worked at Airbnb, and the company is now "proud of the success of Coinbase".
In addition, after Airbnb’s IPO in 2020, cryptocurrencies and blockchain were mentioned in its listing documents on the stock exchange. Here, for example, is an excerpt from the publication.
Our future success will also depend on our ability to adapt to new technologies like tokenization, cryptocurrency, biometrics, distributed ledger and blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and cloud technology.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky
The integration of crypto into Airbnb is likely to give a powerful boost to the adoption of digital assets around the world. Millions of travelers use the platform, so for them the ability to pay in cryptocurrency will come in handy.
We believe that integrating digital assets into a service used by people from many countries and continents seems like the only solution. After all, today Bitcoin is already the official means of payment in El Salvador, which means there is no sense to shy away from paying in crypto. We hope that the integration of the innovation within the Airbnb platform will take place soon.
What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. We’ll talk about other blockchain and decentralization topics there as well.
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