Airbnb has no plans to move into blockchain

Airbnb, the world's most successful provider of lodgings (which owns no beds), caused a flurry of excitement this week among blockchain watchers, with news it had hired a team from ChangeTip, the Bitcoin payment solution.

A recent interview given by Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk to CityAM was also cited, as further fuel to speculation on Airbnb's blockchain plans.

However, the company has made it clear it is not interested or planning on moving in to blockchain.

An Airbnb spokesperson told IBTimes in a statement: "We are thrilled to bring some members of the ChangeTip team on as a part of Airbnb and joining the engineering team working on building our infrastructure.

"We are not acquiring the assets of the company, nor do we have any plans to incorporate Bitcoin into the Airbnb ecosystem."

Large businesses like Uber and Airbnb, which operate on a putative peer-to-peer basis, perhaps don't see a vast amount to be gained from strong decentralisation. And it is unclear how a reputation system like Airbnb's would operate any better via a blockchain database.

There has also been some speculation around the community that Airbnb might have been interested in the automated lock technology created by Slock.it, using smart contracts on Ethereum. But perhaps not.