Uber CEO: Will accept Bitcoin when 'cryptocurrency' is greener and cheaper

In an interview with Bloomberg News today (12th), Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of the online car-hailing platform giant Uber, said that its application (APP) will accept "cryptocurrency payment" in the future, but now Not the right point in time.

He started by revealing that there have been discussions about cryptocurrencies within the company, and what he thinks they have observed in Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies is:

"They are very valuable as a store of value"

But he cited the potentially high transaction costs and the controversial energy impact of cryptocurrency mining as reasons Uber has yet to adopt cryptocurrencies.

Current trading mechanisms are expensive and bad for the environment. As transaction mechanisms become cheaper and greener, I think you'll see us leaning more toward cryptocurrencies.

Will Uber accept encryption in the future? Absolutely, at some point. Now is not the right time. But we will.

Earlier expressed its position to consider accepting cryptocurrency payments

In fact, this is not the first time Uber has said it will accept cryptocurrency payments. According to previous reports from the Motion Zone, the CEO of Uber said in an interview early last year that Uber may accept cryptocurrency payments such as Bitcoin, and he pointed out in an interview in 2017:

Just as we accept local currencies everywhere, we will study and support services such as cryptocurrency and bitcoin from the perspective of transaction currency.

And this is beneficial to the driver or the user, and we will definitely study it carefully. If there is a need and a benefit to accepting cryptocurrencies, we will.

But until today in 2022, Uber has said that now is not the "right time", meaning it won't see the company accept cryptocurrency payments anytime soon.

It is worth noting that Khosrowshahi also said in an interview last year that “Uber will not buy bitcoin” and put it on the balance sheet because the company believes that it is “too high risk” to ensure cash safety and will not. It's a "speculative" business.

Other companies that have accepted crypto payments

While many companies are still cautious about cryptocurrency payments and slow to adopt, a number of companies have announced their acceptance of cryptocurrency payments in recent years.

For example, the Web2 technology giant Microsoft (Microsoft) accepted bitcoin payments as early as 2014 and became an early adopter of bitcoin; AMC, the largest theater chain in the United States, also announced the opening of bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and lite in November last year. Online payment for ticket purchases in 4 cryptocurrencies including Dogecoin, Dogecoin and Shiba Inucoin will also follow in March this year.

Tesla, the leader in electric vehicles, announced in February last year that it would accept bitcoin payments from consumers, but in May CEO Elon Musk suddenly said that mining was not environmentally friendly and decided to suspend bitcoin. paid, and expressed his intention to restart the policy several times in the future.

However, despite the delay in restarting Bitcoin payment, Musk, the godfather of Dogecoin, announced at the beginning of this year that he officially accepted Dogecoin (DOGE) payment for some items in his online store, and even pushed other companies to follow him. He tweeted that if fast food giant McDonald's started accepting Dogecoin payments, he would eat children's meals on TV. Let Burger King also take the opportunity to get on the topic of marketing, claiming to consider accepting dogecoin payments.