WeWork Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Membership Fees
By Nicholas Rizzi April 20, 2021 10:24 am
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WeWork will join the cryptocurrency wave.
The coworking giant announced on Tuesday that it will start accepting various cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin and Ethereum — from members as payment for their workspaces.
WeWork will also hold the cryptocurrencies and use them as payment to its landlords and other vendors when possible, according to the company.
“WeWork has always been at the forefront of innovative technologies, finding new ways to support our members,” WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani said in a statement. “It only makes sense for us to expand on the optionality we provide by adding cryptocurrency as an accepted form of payment for our members.”
The coworking company said it will process cryptocurrency payments through BitPay and that cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase will be WeWork’s first member to pay rent through the digital dollars.
WeWork’s announcement to accept Bitcoin comes nearly a month after the coworking giant agreed to go public a second time, this time in a deal to merge with a blank-check company that would value WeWork at $9 billion.
While WeWork significantly cut its operating expenses from the last time it tried to go public, the company still lost $3.2 billion last year while pulling in about the same in revenue.
And WeWork joins a growing number of real estate companies hopping on the cryptocurrency train.
Earlier this month, billionaire developer Rick Caruso announced his apartment and retail tenants could pay their rent in Bitcoin, while New York City landlord Kent Swig plans to launch his own cryptocurrency backed by $6 billion in gold reserves.
And some New York City landlords are looking toward a blockchain-based trading system for carbon emissions as a potential way to mitigate the costs of the city’s new environmental regulations.
