Airbnb Now Accepts Bitcoin Payments Via Fold App

Airbnb is the latest to join the list of brands the Bitcoin payments app, Fold, supports.

Fold welcomed the home-sharing company via a tweet on Monday, noting that customers who will use Fold to book their next stay with Airbnb can now get 3% back in Bitcoin.

The Atlanta-based company has been in the Bitcoin payments scene since 2014. It has a few big names that support their service, which includes Amazon, Uber, Target, Southwest Airlines, Dunkin' Donuts, AMC, Home Depot, Rei, Starbucks, Macy's and more.

To earn rewards, Fold users will have to purchase brand-specific gift cards using the Fold app. Once the gift card is purchased, it's stored in the user's account until its ready for use. The user also earns satoshis (the smallest unit of BTC) for every gift card purchase, which the company calls Fold kickbacks.

When the user decides to use the card, the merchant scans its code to complete the payment, which is either online or in-store. The entire process is said to take 30 seconds, and Fold doesn't charge any routing fee. All of this is supported under Bitcoin's Lightning Network.

However, this doesn't mean that the merchants have a direct connection with Fold as these transactions will only appear as gift card purchases or store credit on the merchant's balance sheet.

A push for Hyperbitcoinization

The whole aim of incentivizing users with kickbacks, according to the company, is to achieve a much wider adoption of the crypto, otherwise known as "hyperbitcoinization."

"We believe that Bitcoin provides a fundamentally better way to pay, one that preserves privacy, resists censorship and is natively global. To this end, we build products that make spending bitcoin a no-brainer, making it as easy to use, rewarding and widely accepted as a credit card," CEO Will Reeves wrote in a company statement.

A similar service is offered by Lolli, a web browser extension for Chrome and FirexFox that offers the same Bitcoin Back incentive for users. The company is already working with more than 500 merchants and has recently partnered with the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Monday.