Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said that users of the platform have been requesting to accept cryptocurrency payments for home and hotel bookings and it is therefore something the company will be thinking about doing during 2022.
Airbnb users want cryptocurrency payments
A few days ago, Chesky had asked on Twitter to suggest new initiatives for Airbnb in 2022 and from this survey, it seems that crypto payments were the most requested thing by users.
If Airbnb could launch anything in 2022, what would it be?
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) January 2, 2022
On Twitter, there were more than 4,000 replies and retweets, and for greater transparency, Chesky published a second tweet stating what the requests were. So, as we can see, accepting crypto payments is in first place.
Got 4,000 suggestions. Here are the top 6:
1 – Crypto payments (top suggestion)
2 – Clear pricing displays
3 – Guest loyalty program
4 – Updated cleaning fees
5 – More long-term stays & discounts
6 – Better customer serviceAlready working on most, will look into others now! https://t.co/rxEM4BXZci
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) January 5, 2022
So who knows whether in 2022 this company, which closed the first half of 2021 with a turnover of $2.222 billion, will accept crypto payments.
According to Chesky, the company already has “a variety of token ideas.”
Airbnb talks about crypto
In fact, back in early 2021, the CEO of Airbnb had already spoken about cryptocurrencies during an interview with Fox Business, saying that users had been calling for the acceptance of crypto payments for quite some time.
As of today, the only way to pay with cryptocurrencies on Airbnb is to use gift cards from Bitrefill launched back in 2019.
Furthermore, it is important to remember that the company’s other co-founder, Nathan Blecharczyk, had already invested in a cryptocurrency trading platform called SFOX back in 2018.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2022/01/05/airbnb-payments-in-cryptocurrencies/