Flexible office provider WeWork is to start accepting membership payments via cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ethereum and others.
The company is partnering with Coinbase, which is also a WeWork member, as well as BitPay, both crypto platforms, to join the likes of PayPal, Visa and Tesla in rolling out the service.
It comes roughly a week after Bitcoin hit a record high ahead of the trading debut of Coinbase, and little more than a month after WeWork revived investors’ hopes that it too would go public via a blank-cheque company, or SPAC, in New York.
WeWork chief executive Sandeep Mathrani said: “As our member base continues to grow in the fintech sector, so will our ability to adapt to their needs and service a new economy. WeWork has always been at the forefront of innovative technologies, finding new ways to support our members.”
The serviced office provider, which has 60 sites in London, will give companies the option of using crypto both for making and receiving payments. Coinbase will be the first WeWork member to take it up on the offer, it added.
The scheme will support payments via Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), Paxos (PAX), and several other cryptocurrencies. The company also said it would hold the crypto assets on its balance sheet.
“When we think about the workplace of the future and business, we have to consider cryptocurrency a central part of that conversation,” said Marcelo Claure, WeWork’s chairman and CEO of the company’s major backer Softbank. “WeWork’s ability to provide members with an additional convenient means of payment is hugely exciting.”
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