Airbnb has “acqui-hired” the majority of the team behind ChangeCoin, the blockchain business that developed the social Bitcoin tipping service ChangeTip, Quartz reported last week, pointing out “four people with knowledge of the offer” as sources.
“Acqui-hired” describes working with the key staff of a company in block, instead of purchasing the company and its copyright.
ChangeTip, the flagship service established by the ChangeCoin team, offers a quick and simple way to reveal gratitude with a Bitcoin micropayment via the main social media networks. ChangeTip went viral not long after launch and was considered a Bitcoin killer app, which enabled the business to raise $ 3.5 million in equity capital in 2014. However, the company continued to have a hard time and, according to the sources mentioned by Quartz, had to put its intellectual building and software application up for sale.
“We are enjoyed bring some members of the ChangeTip group on as a part of Airbnb and signing up with the engineering group dealing with constructing our infrastructure,” an Airbnb representative told International Company Times. “We are not acquiring the assets of the company, nor do we have any strategies to integrate Bitcoin into the Airbnb ecosystem.”
Airbnb, founded in August 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace for temporary accommodations that connects hosts and clients all over the world. The service is especially popular with cost-conscious travelers or visitors who need lodging for a short stay. In 2015, Airbnb raised $ 1.5 billion in financing led by growth equity firm General Atlantic. Airbnb’s company model, based upon collecting charges from hosts, is comparable to Uber’s.
The “people as a service” company model of Uber and Airbnb has proved disruptive and amazingly successful with suppliers and customers alike, and threatened well established service providers such as hotels and taxi companies. Regardless of the many governing attacks based, for example, on the work status of Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts, it appears consumers want services like Uber and Airbnb, which, therefore, are likely to continue growing.The main
Airbnb statement seems to mean that Airbnb has no immediate strategies to accept Bitcoin payments, which appears plausible considering that the company is typically under governing fire for other factors and, therefore, most likely desires to keep things peaceful on this front.However, Airbnb has
needs to have an interest in the blockchain technology upon which the Bitcoin network is based.
“I believe that, within the context of Airbnb, your track record is everything, and I can see it being a lot more so in the future, whereby you may need a certain track record [in] order to have access to particular kinds of homes,” stated Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk in a recent interview with CityAM, in response to a concern about Airbnb’s ultimate strategies to utilize dispersed ledger technology to develop rely on its network.
“However then the question is whether there’s a method to export that and permit access in other places in order to help other sharing economy models truly thrive,” said Blecharczyk. “We’re searching for all various sort of signals to inform us whether somebody is trustworthy, and I might definitely see some of these more unique kinds of signals being connecteded into our engine.”
That seems to suggest that Airbnb is looking beyond Bitcoin payment and hiring blockchain skill to prepare for next-generation applications of dispersed ledgers, such as reputation systems and smart contracts. These “Bitcoin 2.0” applications are crucial to “individuals as a service” business models such as those of Airbnb and Uber, fixated credibility and instantly performing agreements.In November, Bitcoin Publication reported that Slock, a German startup specializing in blockchain and Web of Things (IoT)applications, will sell clever locks connected to the Ethereum blockchain, which can be unlocked instantly on payment for a rental car or house. Smart-lock technology might decentralize the sharing economy, empowering anybody to quickly lease, share or offer anything that can be locked, which implies interfering with the disruptors, consisting of business such as Airbnb and other intermediaries based around some form of physical access.” I utilize [Uber and Airbnb] and value the progress they are making
in bringing awareness to the sharing economy, however I would choose a system that would permit me to deal directly with the owner without any third celebrations skimming off the top,”said Slock’s co-founder Christoph Jentzsch. International Business Times mentions speculation that Airbnb’s interest in blockchain innovation might have been promoted by Slock
‘s automated lock technology. It promises that Airbnb will think about blockchain-based plans to continue as one of the disruptors instead of turning into one of the disrupted.The post Airbnb Hire of ChangeTip Personnel Sparks New Interest in Bitcoin and Blockchain for IoT appeared initially on Bitcoin Magazine. Bitcoin Magazine