AirBNB CEO Brian Chesky recently took to Twitter to explore what users would want from the company in the next year. As a digital rental platform, AirBNB is hailed as one of the leading digital platforms to establish decentralised participation. With its digital foundations and peer-to-peer model, the platform is poised to work well with accepting cryptocurrency. According to the the results from Chesky’s 400,000 followers, users of the platform agree.
According to Chesky’s results, the top suggestion for improvements for the platform is cryptocurrency payments to enable users to pay for their rental online using their digital currencies.
He also noted that other ideas include cryptocurrency token ideas for the platform, suggesting that AirBNB opens up cryptocurrency payments across the market -and not just accepting Bitcoin and Ethereum, for example.
In September, Chesky noted that there is nothing new to announce just yet, but that they are exploring the idea of adopting digital currencies to their platform:
“We are definitely looking into it. Absolutely. Like the revolution in travel, there is clearly a revolution happening in crypto. Airbnb and crypto both have interesting relationships with trust.”
Five companies that accept cryptocurrency as payments
While AirBNB might not be accepting crypto – at this time – there are companies that have adopted cryptocurrency to their payment’s systems.
PayPal
News of PayPal’s adoption of Bitcoin and its entrance into the crypto world came as a massive topic in both the crypto space and the financial scope. PayPal customers can buy and sell cryptocurrency on the platform for investment, trading or to use it to transact on another site and they can also use it to pay on websites that accept PayPal payments. With the payments platform’s crypto adoption, users of PayPal can use crypto at over 30 million merchants with the platform acting as the gateway.
CheapAir
CheapAir has been one of cryptocurrency’s earliest corporate adopters, allowing customers to buy flights and hotel bookings since 2013. The company was using Coinbase but had to shift gear when regulatory concerns became an issue for the exchange. Now the company uses btc payserver as a payments platform to allow users to pay using their cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Gemini Dollar (GUSD), and USD Coin (USDC).
Travala
Like CheapAir, Travala has enabled customers who want to book flights, hotels, tours and activities to pay using not only Bitcoin but also a number of altcoins in the crypto market. Other payments include Cardano (ADA), Ethereum and Dogecoin. Travala has also launched its own coin (AVA) as a coin native to the online site, which has nearly doubled in value since middway through 2021.
Travala has also partnered with Binance Pay and Crypto.com Pay for customers to book stays at hotels through the exchange platforms. To offer more accessibility with payments, the travel company recently teamed up with OpenNode to accept Bitcoin payments on the Lightning Network. Juan Otero, CEO of Travala.com, commented on the partnership:
“At Travala.com, we’re constantly exploring ways to further bridge the gap between blockchain and travel, so working with OpenNode to enable Bitcoin payments on the Lightning Network was a natural fit for us to continue innovating towards the future of travel.”
AT&T
In May 2019, AT&T announced that it was the first major US mobile carrier that would be accepting cryptocurrency payments for its users to pay for services using their digital currencies. The company accepts crypto payments through BitPay which acts as a third-party gateway to allow users to pay using select cryptocurrencies.
Kevin McDorman, vice president, AT&T Communications Finance Business Operations commented on the rationale behind opening up crypto payments to users:
“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.”
Overstock.com
The American furniture online retailer was an early adopter in the world of crypto. In 2014, just five years after Bitcoin was first launched and many years before the idea hit mainstream media, Overstock.com started accepting Bitcoin for payments. Currently, the digital retailer is partnered with Coinbase as a gateway to enable users to pay for products using Bitcoin.
