Seems like one of the biggest accommodation rental online marketplace companies Airbnb has aimed on cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology, according to the latest prospectus for its planned Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Back in 2016 when Airbnb purchased a crypto service called ChangeTip, the housing rental giant said there is no plan to start accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.

But registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, the prospectus reports that Airbnb's “future success will … depend on our ability to adapt to emerging technologies such as tokenization, cryptocurrencies [and] new authentication technologies.”

Key to the Future

It also recites blockchain technology and distributed ledger, artificial intelligence (AI), biometrics, cloud technologies, and virtual reality that may be considered as a key in future.

However, this information is placed in the “Risk Factors” part of the prospectus, and says the following:

"As a result, we intend to continue to spend significant resources maintaining, developing, and enhancing our technologies and platform. However, these efforts may be more costly than expected and may not be successful."

In terms of the IPO, Airbnb plans trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market with the “ABNB” ticker. The company is also planning to raise around $3 billion in the IPO. The current value of Airbnb is $30 billion.

Back on Track

The housing rental giant has revealed in the prospectus that despite the restrictions the company faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it managed to profit in Q3 2020:

“In early 2020, as COVID-19 disrupted travel across the world, Airbnb’s business declined significantly, but within two months, our business model started to rebound even with limited international travel, demonstrating its resilience,” disclosed Airbnb.

Of course, in case Airbnb announces the implementation of cryptocurrencies to its platform, it will cause a lot of buzz around virtual currencies and Blockchain technology, and a new shockwave in the digital world will occur. It will definitely cause Bitcoin`s rally and mainstream adoption again, as it happened after PayPal finally announced a crypto buying service in October.