AirBnB CEO shows support for Bitcoin, will it support Bitcoin payments in 2017?

Bitcoin is essentially a currency that ignores the concept of national borders. One of the advantages of Bitcoin is that through encryption technology, it can bring immutable transactions and prevent funds from being seized. For refugee countries, Bitcoin's decentralization has another benefit - bad actors cannot steal property they can't see, because Bitcoin private keys can be written and stored almost anywhere. If you are suffering from war and famine, then Bitcoin will definitely be the currency you want.

AirBNB recently started a political discussion by launching the #WeAccept campaign. The decentralized rental service has issued a serious political statement, sending a positive message to the outside world.

Not long ago, people expressed what it meant to be “all American.” We urged the hungry, the overworked, the disabled to come to our country and thrive in the land of opportunity. Over the past few decades, people from all corners of the globe have been treated equally in this country. Bitcoin’s resistance to regulatory jurisdiction at the code level is less a political decision than a security issue. Because it’s clear that if the state can compromise Bitcoin transactions, so can everyone else.

As long as AirBnB is still spreading an internationalist message, perhaps it should adopt a global, immutable payment method. AirBnB can increase its share of supplier fees and attract users who have difficulty providing other digital payment methods. AirBnB CEO Brian Chesky recently asked his followers on Twitter:

If AirBnB were to launch something in 2017, what would it be?

He later posted:

“Thanks to over 2,000 responses, I got the following popular answers: Bitcoin, renter credit, upgraded home accommodation and services, group travel, and Mars, among others.

Many users have suggested that AirBnB use Bitcoin. For many services that require post-pull transactions, such as rental services, the immutability of cryptocurrencies does have some limitations that must be addressed.

For example, there is no way to bill someone for funds that they have authorized in their Bitcoin wallet. The Bitcoin holder must choose to send the funds to the requester. In practice, this means that the Bitcoin user's payment size needs to be higher than the AirBnB rental, and the remaining funds are returned to them after the transaction is successfully completed.

AirBnB’s technical implementation of Bitcoin is not what I want to discuss here. What I want to discuss here are the philosophical reasons why AirBnB accepts Bitcoin, and the possibility that AirBnB refuses other payment methods that are inconsistent with its philosophy. Credit card companies are willing to shut down support for organizations fighting for freedom, such as Wikileaks, and impose a "bank blockade" on these organizations. Indeed, this kind of thing has driven people's attention to Bitcoin in recent years. Satoshi Nakamoto once expressed concerns about government obstruction in his last memo:

I urge Wikileaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is still a small testing community in its early stages. You won't make money by using Bitcoin at this point, but it could be devastating to Bitcoin at this stage.

Although WikiLeaks did follow Satoshi's advice at the time, as Bitcoin grew, they accepted Bitcoin as a donation method and have now received more than 4,000 BTC. AirBnB accepting Bitcoin to protect user privacy seems to have obvious benefits for both parties. AirBnB CEO Chesky said the company has been considering this idea for a long time, but it is not yet possible. The idea of ​​a global universal currency mixed with the idea of ​​a unified human race will help AirBnB adopt Bitcoin, but not everyone thinks similarly to AirBnB.