Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that this high demand will translate into action.
Airbnb's CEO has revealed that the company is looking into accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method.
At the start of 2022, Brian Chesky invited his 400,000 followers to get in touch with their suggestions on how to improve the house rental platform.
He subsequently revealed that he had received more than 4,000 comments — and crypto payments were the top suggestion.
Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that this high demand will translate into action. Back in September, Chesky told Fox Business that Airbnb users had been requesting payments for several years.
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When Airbnb embarked on its initial public offering, we also got an insight into the company's views on crypto thanks to the prospectus that was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Setting out the opportunities and challenges that will define the company in the years to come, Airbnb said:
"Our future success will also depend on our ability to adapt to emerging technologies such as tokenization, cryptocurrencies, new authentication technologies, such as biometrics, distributed ledger and blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and cloud technologies."
Although this sounds promising, Airbnb executives did strike a note of caution here. The company warned that embracing such technology could be an expensive endeavor that doesn't end up translating into results. Indeed, it's worth noting that many people are reluctant to spend crypto — some because it is too complicated, and others because of its volatility.
There are also fears that, if support for crypto was to backfire, there could be complaints from customers or damage to its brand.
