Why did Airbnb set its sights on blockchain technology?

Recently, Airbnb, which always appears in the lifestyle section, broke a very technical news.

It poached most of the staff from ChangeCoin, a little-known startup that developed and operated ChangeTip, a bitcoin payment service that lets users transfer small amounts of money on social networks like Twitter and Reddit.

However, what Airbnb values ​​is not this ready-made transfer transaction plug-in. For this small company founded by former Yahoo engineer Nick Sullivan in 2014, Airbnb cares about professionals who are familiar with the core technology of Bitcoin products, "data blockchain" (BlockChain).

To put it bluntly, it means focusing on the "data blockchain".

The "data blockchain" mentioned here is an important cornerstone for the realization of Bitcoin. It is like a ledger that records the transaction details on the entire Bitcoin network. After that, through the setting of complex public keys and private keys, everyone can see other people's transaction records, but at the same time they cannot be tampered with. In this way, both parties to the transaction can bypass the third party regarded as a "public person", improve efficiency and save costs. Before Airbnb, international institutions such as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, as well as financial companies such as the Nasdaq-OMX Group, have shown interest in it.

However, for this Internet company that emphasizes lifestyle, what exactly does Airbnb value about it?

By the summer of 2015, Airbnb had accumulated 17 million users. One of the important reasons why these users can find their desired short-term residence is that Airbnb has a relatively complete rating and review database to store the evaluation and transaction information of house owners and tenants. The "data blockchain" mentioned at the beginning, which is like a ledger, can store almost all transaction, rating and review details, making the data more readable.

In addition, Airbnb also values ​​the ability to safely and carefully export data to other platforms or share data using the blockchain. Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and CTO of Airbnb, who sparked its interest in the blockchain, said: "We are thinking about whether this professional information can help more sharing economy startups."

By then, when more and more companies use "data blockchain", an Uber driver may be able to know the Airbnb ratings of the passenger he is carrying when he opens the app.