Published: April 23rd, 2021
WeWork, the real-estate company offering flexible workspaces to start-ups and entrepreneurs, has joined a string of name brand companies that have started accepting cryptocurrencies for payment. Using crypto payments provider BitPay, WeWork’s co-working space and fixed office tenants can pay their rent in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others.
WeWork’s move echoes the announcement by Tesla in March that it would allow customers to pay for its cars with Bitcoin, adding another note of confidence to a growing corporate chorus helping cryptocurrencies inch towards mainstream acceptance.
Crypto exchange Coinbase, which became the first significant crypto brand to go public last week with a listing on the Nasdaq, will be the first to take WeWork up on its new pay-by-crypto offer.
In a press release, WeWork said it would take payment in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Paxos (PAX), and USD Coin (USDC). In another sign it’s following Tesla’s lead, WeWork says it will add a cryptocurrency line to its balance sheet and report it separately as a standalone asset, rather than convert it to fiat currency.
WeWork chairman Marcelo Claure said ‘when we imagine the workplace of the future and how business is likely to be conducted, its become clear that cryptocurrency is going to be a key part of that conversation.’
The company announcement also says its landlord and third-party partners can also opt to be paid using cryptocurrencies and receive payments via Coinbase.
Alongside Tesla, several other companies have announced payment integrations with BitPay in recent weeks, including national wine merchants Acker and The Bobby Hotel, a boutique hotel in Nashville frequented by music industry celebrities. They’re just the latest in a long list of household name businesses that have begun to embrace crypto’s rising popularity (see the complete list below).
Quoted in WeWork’s announcement, BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said that BitPay believes crypto is the future of payments.
‘Our objective as a business is to transform how individuals and organisations buy services and transfer money. By accepting crypto for payment, WeWork is giving its tech-savvy customers a modern payment option that’s more flexible and cost-effective easier than credit cards, and opening the doors to a market worth around USD 2 trillion globally.’
The German branch of Burger King started taking Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash payments for delivery orders on its mobile app and website in 2019.
In 2018 KFC Canada began accepting Bitcoin through a BitPay-backed home delivery combo promotion called Bitcoin Bucket.
Global sandwich chain Subway has been gradually adding Bitcoin as a payment option at its branches since early 2020.
The global pizza chain began a pilot in Venezuela in 2019 to accept Bitcoin after economic sanctions pushed cryptocurrency rapidly into mainstream use.
The PC giant now lets Office 365 customers pay for their annual software subscriptions in Bitcoin.
The leading low-cost domain name registrar started accepting Bitcoin back in 2013.
The cloud storage and file hosting service from Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has accepted Bitcoin for account upgrades since 2015.
One of America’s biggest telco companies, AT&T was the first national mobile carrier to offer cryptocurrency payments through BitPay.
The subscription-based virtual private network (VPN) service started accepting Bitcoin for payment in 2019.
US retailer Overstock partnered with Coinbase in 2019 to accept Bitcoin payments for online orders.
The online gift card service, which partners with big brands like Starbucks, iTunes, and Amazon, now takes Bitcoin as a fee-free form of payment.
The online computer hardware and consumer electronics company was one of the first high street brands to accept Bitcoin for purchases.
Amazon-owned Twitch is one of the biggest streaming platforms for online gamers. The company accepts Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash as payment.
While the world’s biggest e-commerce marketplace doesn’t accept Bitcoin directly, anyone using Purse.io (similar to PayPal) to make purchases pay with Bitcoin. The service links shoppers who want to pay with Bitcoin and Amazon merchants who accept it for payment.
The Miami Dolphins American football team have started a trial promotion to let home game attendees pay with Bitcoin and Litecoin when buying tickets for the team’s 50/50 charity contest. Half of the proceeds will go to the team’s community charity foundation.
The Sport Lisboa e Benfica (Benfica) football club is one of the biggest and most popular teams in Portugal. The club began accepting Bitcoin for game tickets and merchandise in 2019.
The Mavericks professional basketball (NBA) team now accepts Bitcoin (via BitPay) on its website for both game tickets and team merchandise.
Virgin’s nascent space travel service lets its customers pay for its (eventual) flights beyond the Earth’s atmosphere with Bitcoin.
Norwegian’s shuttle service is the largest airline in the Nordics and Europe’s third-largest budget brand. It announced plans to accept crypto payment for tickets in 2020.
US budget online travel agency CheapAir began taking Bitcoin payments through Coinbase in 2019, and recently switched to BTCPayServer.
The San Francisco – based non-profit beloved by technology enthusiasts maintains a free digital library called the Wayback Machine that aims to capture everything ever published on the net and store it for posterity. The organisation accepts Bitcoin for donations.
When it isn’t dodging regulators or fighting entertainment industry lawsuits, the world’s most popular file-sharing index site accepts donations in Bitcoin and other types of crypto.
4Chan is an imageboard website heavily frequented by crypto users. To purchase a 4Chan registration pass, the site accepts Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin.