Amazon is broadening its crypto horizons by expanding its team, but has denied any rumors of accepting Bitcoin for payments as stated by a ‘fake insider’.
Amid the news spreading like a wildfire that Amazon is going to adopt Bitcoin for payments, the company categorically denied any such rumors.
The ‘anonymous source within Amazon’ that had reportedly told London based business newspaper City A.M. that the e-commerce behemoth may start accepting Bitcoin payments by year-end has turned out to be fake.
Amazon’s affinity towards digital currencies is growing considering its recent job post that states it is hiring a “Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead” for its cryptocurrency program.
These events do highlight the cloud-to-e-commerce conglomerate’s wish to step into the digital currency space, but it has not opened itself to private digital currencies.
The ‘fake insider’s ’ views
A Twitter account called CryptoCobain run by a man, who’s also a Youtuber, named Cobie has claimed responsibility for passing off as an Amazon employee to City AM reporter Darren Parkin.
Parkin has confirmed that he was convinced with the attire and voice of the person along with the documents provided.
The fake insider told Parkin, “This isn’t just going through the motions to set up cryptocurrency payment solutions at some point in the future – this is a full-on, well-discussed, integral part of the future mechanism of how Amazon will work.”
“It begins with Bitcoin – this is the key first stage of this crypto project, and the directive is coming from the very top… Jeff Bezos himself,” as reported in City AM.
“Ethereum, Cardano and Bitcoin Cash will be next in line before they bring about eight of the most popular cryptocurrencies online,” ‘she’ added.
“This entire project is pretty much ready to roll.”
In addition to accepting Bitcoin payments, Amazon is also exploring the creation of its own cryptocurrency, possibly as early as 2022, as told by the “source” to City A.M.
Amazon’s denial
The media reports flooding the internet have not been confirmed by any Amazon employee.
Rather, an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that they are not looking forward to accepting bitcoin payments by the end of the year.
“Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true,” said the spokesperson to Reuters.
“We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon,” the spokesperson added.
Cobie’s tweets have baffled the netizens who began to experience euphoria after reading about Amazon’s acceptance of Bitcoin, but their joy was short-lived as both Amazon and Cobbie brought the curtains down and revealed the truth.
The Job Post
The Payments Acceptance & Experience team of Amazon is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) towards improving the customer experience, technical strategy, and launch strategy for crypto payments.
On July 22, the team posted a job that requires someone who would be leading the project.
“You will leverage your domain expertise in Blockchain, Distributed Ledger, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Cryptocurrency to develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed, drive the overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities,” the job description stated.
Previous initiatives
This is not the first time Amazon is undertaking such a project or expanding its crypto team.
In February it had posted a job that looked for developers to build digital currency projects for its crypto program in Mexico.
In 2020 the company launched Amazon Coins, valued at one US cent per coin, which can be used to make purchases on Appstore.
Also, AWS currently offers a managed blockchain service. It facilitates joining public networks or creating and managing scalable private networks using the popular open-source frameworks Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum.
The increasing use of digital currencies is ushering in a new era of “digital economics” and Web 3.0. Before Bitcoin was created, nobody could have thought of launching a digital currency let alone a private currency. Today they are making waves with common civilians to big corporations. Consequently, even governments are planning to “print” currency digitally.
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