Amazon's Hiring a 'Digital Currency and Blockchain' Lead, Confirms Interest in 'Modern' Payments (cnbc.com) 59
"Amazon is looking to add a digital currency and blockchain expert to its payments team," reports CNBC.
According to a recent job posting, Amazon's payments acceptance and experience team is seeking to hire an "experienced product leader to develop Amazon's Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap."
"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 overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities," according to the job posting, which was previously reported by Insider... An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement: "We're inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon.
"We believe the future will be built on new technologies that enable modern, fast, and inexpensive payments, and hope to bring that future to Amazon customers as soon as possible.
UPDATE (7/26): While CNBC speculated the move meant that Amazon "could be taking a more serious look at cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin," Reuters reported the next day that Amazon had "denied a media report saying the e-commerce giant was looking to accept bitcoin payments by the end of the year."
But reports like CNBC's nonetheless caused a 17% spike in the price of Bitcoin, according to Bloomberg, which briefly boosted its price back above $40,000 (before dropping back down to $38,000...)
"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 overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities," according to the job posting, which was previously reported by Insider... An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement: "We're inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon.
"We believe the future will be built on new technologies that enable modern, fast, and inexpensive payments, and hope to bring that future to Amazon customers as soon as possible.
UPDATE (7/26): While CNBC speculated the move meant that Amazon "could be taking a more serious look at cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin," Reuters reported the next day that Amazon had "denied a media report saying the e-commerce giant was looking to accept bitcoin payments by the end of the year."
But reports like CNBC's nonetheless caused a 17% spike in the price of Bitcoin, according to Bloomberg, which briefly boosted its price back above $40,000 (before dropping back down to $38,000...)
The Visa Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon, like pretty much everyone else, wants to avoid paying the Visa tax.
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Considering that they are the biggest online marketplace in the world, there is a legit case to consider here. What if they offer their own currency for use exclusively on Amazon and Amazon services? The same points you can buy shit with on Amazon, you can gift to streamers on Twitch, you can use on AWS, you can pay to buy crap in the new Amazon MMO with...
When are virtual points considered an alternative currency and start being subject to different laws?
The next Buy n Large (Score:2)
Considering that they are the biggest online marketplace in the world, there is a legit case to consider here. What if they offer their own currency for use exclusively on Amazon and Amazon services? The same points you can buy shit with on Amazon, you can gift to streamers on Twitch, you can use on AWS, you can pay to buy crap in the new Amazon MMO with... When are virtual points considered an alternative currency and start being subject to different laws?
... and then Amazon becomes Buy n Large [wikipedia.org]
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On the bright side, all Amazon Prime members will probably get $50 worth of ZonBucks for "free" to start trying to pay for things with them.
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It already exists [amazon.com]. You can buy virtual Amazon curren
Good luck with that (Score:3, Insightful)
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And, as reported yesterday, these people want a key to my apartment building...
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Cryptocurrencies will solve for the problem of disputes by using smart contracts. You will essentially pay into an escrow. If you are happy with the item, you tell the contract and it completes payment. If you are not, the a dispute protocol is initiated that can eventually give you your money back if you prevail and complete a timely return.
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So, they're replacing it with the super cheap crypto tax? A single BTC transaction is, what, $50 right now?
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Bitcoin transaction fees are paid to the miners that verify the transaction. Who does Amazon know that has a large amount of computing power that could give them favorable rates? i.e. Amazon will flood the system with verification resources since they would be paying the fees to themselves.
This is similar to how Amazon-branded credit has a 5% "reward": a portion of a credit transaction fee go to the brand-owner, which Amazon is paying to itself.
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Does it really matter if Amazon mines transaction blocks themselves though? The cost for these are associated with mining difficulty and energy costs; if anything, Amazon dedicating AWS resources to this would make prices go up.
The other problem is that the Bitcoin network is horribly slow at validating transaction. If this story happens to be true, Amazon would most likely not be doing it just to give Visa the shaft, which is still an incredibly cheap way to process purchases.
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Amazon compute resources at scale could beat the costs of any operator that isn't stealing electricity, and they have chip design resources that could beat anyone currently making mining ASICs. They'd be completely vertically integrated and could subsidize any part of the stack if they found it useful.
OTOH, I agree with your point about Visa transactions. It's still a practical way to handle money.
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It's not so much the hardware/power cost (which, keep in mind, is still bananas for Bitcoin mining). The mere fact of having an entity like Amazon entering the mining business would make costs skyrocket, because Bitcoin mining difficulty automatically adjusts based on the entire network's hashrate.
Most cryptocurrencies do this, as far as i know.
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It's about $2 right now. It is a lot more volatile than credit card fees, but is generally much, much, much lower than $50.
https://ycharts.com/indicators... [ycharts.com]
That said, BTC is not the whole of cryptocurrency, or blockchain, or anything else.
If any coin really does get accepted by say PayPal, Amazon, and Tesla, I'd bet it's actually DOGE. DOGE's fee is something like $0.25 right now.
Much lower transaction fees, much lower energy usage, and the constantly growing supply is arguably good for retailers, as it may
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(You know what else has a constantly growing supply? Dollars.)
It also has monetary policies. Good or bad, but policies which can be controlled.
There's good reason why the only one pushing a joke "currency" such as Doge is Elon Musk.
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You should short it then, you could be a billionaire in no time at all.
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Way too high risk.
Not for him apparently, his "Bitcoin will go to zero" prediction does not seem to have an wriggle room. If I 100% predict something like he does I would certainly act upon it.
(Not that I make many predictions).
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Way too high risk.
Not for him apparently, his "Bitcoin will go to zero" prediction does not seem to have an wriggle room. If I 100% predict something like he does I would certainly act upon it.
Unless the prediction has a date for it going to zero, yes, shorting it is risky even if it's 100%. If you go broke before the bubble pops, you get little comfort from saying "I was right, I would have made a bundle if I'd only been able to hold out another two weeks (or two months, or two years).
And even if it you do have a date-- you will die on margin calls if the bubble goes up too high before it goes down.
Yes, it's risky.
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The prediction is 100%, he sees no other possibility. If I saw a chance like that i.e. I believed it absolutely like he does and there is no risk and I would be jumping on it.
(Of course, there is the "off chance" that he is a moron, I find people that make absolute predictions like this often are).
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Apparently you don't understand how futures markets work.
If there's a 100% accurate prediction that a commodity would go down, but you go bankrupt because the commodity went up before it goes down, it doesn't matter that the prediction that the prediction was 100% accurate, you're still bankrupt.
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Apparently you don't understand how futures markets work.
I understand very well actually but this has nothing to do with the futures marked, all you need is the ability to short that is present on so many exchanges. He could easily put a small sum down that would not be liquidated (i.e. he short $10 while having $10,000 in his account). That way it would have to reach the lofty heights of 1000 * what it is now (somewhere about $35,873,900 per bitcoin if you were using bitcoin) and he still won't be liquidated.
However, since his prediction is $0 he will make an
Re: Bitcoin will go to zero (Score:1)
You again proved you have no clue how shorting works. If he shorted $10, he doesn't have the ability to make infinite money....he makes at most $10.
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You again proved you have no clue how shorting works. If he shorted $10,
You are not taking his math into account, it is $10 dollars converted it an infinite percentage increase!. What percentage is $0 of $10 by your math? Infinite right?
Genius!
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You are right that if his short goes to zero his RETURN will be an infinite percentage, but that's not what you said. Your exact words were "he will make an infinite amount of money". He will not make an infinite AMOUNT of money. The amount will be exactly $10. Or if he wanted only a 100x safety net on his $10k, then he will make $100. The absolute most he can make, assuming he doesn't want any safety net at all (ie...assuming it will go to zero without ever increasing in value above his initial short posit
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What percentage is $0 of $10 by your math? Infinite right?
Oh, and by the way, last I checked, $0 was 0% of $10, not infinite, but I assume you meant to word that the other way: "what percent of $0 is $10"
Risk a thousand dollars and you'll make ten bucks! (Score:2)
This is not actually risk free: if the commodity does rise over a thousand dollars before it drops to zero, you just lost a thousand bucks. You're saying that "oh, that risk is low", but you'd previously said that the risk was zero. "Low" is not "zero".
And you also missed the first point. I said that the prediction of the commodity going to zero is useless unless it has a specific date. A short has an expiration
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Or to put it better, there's the well known saying (supposedly said by Keynes) that the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
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Unless you know when it is going to zero, you're exposing yourself to unlimited losses by shorting BTC to that value.
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"The markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
See also: Tesla has a larger market cap than Toyota, Volkswagen, BYD, NIO, Daimler, General Motors, BMW, etc, Combined. Yes, Tesla is worth more than the next nine largest car manufacturers in the world. Yet many of the people who have tried to short Tesla have lost a lot of money doing so.
And for the haters, I'm not saying Tesla is bad, or will go broke. Ju
Pyrite Pete's failed prediction (Score:1)
On Monday April 26, 2021 @02:16AM UTC, Pyrite Pete[1] had said: [slashdot.org]
That was back when bitcoin had already fallen, and down to about $47K at the time. Over two months ago. It is now sitting at about $34K (and it's struggled to get back to/maintain 40K).
Now that's what I call a prediction #FAIL!
[1] no, not that Pyrite Pete [slashdot.org] - the one [imgflip.com] that always posts as AC.
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most market products don't claim to be money and then fail meeting any criteria for money though.
"The characteristics of money are durability, portability, divisibility, uniformity, limited supply, and acceptability." https://www.stlouisfed.org/edu... [stlouisfed.org]
I guess it all depends on the criteria you use.
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I refer the the definition of money in economics, and how bitcoin fails it.
Not universally accepted, not liquid, not a stable store of value.
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Not universally accepted, not liquid, not a stable store of value.
I think those might be considered overly broad definitions, otherwise there would be fewer than a dozen currencies in existence today. Those characteristics are more about the psychology and market-cap of the currency than anything.
If I were to use such criteria, I would have to ask at what level of acceptance and market liquidity would a cryptocurrency be considered money?
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Never trust a man whose name is "Pyrite." That's fools gold for a pirate.
Thank god. (Score:2)
Is this is why BTC gained ~15% over the weekend? (Score:2)
This "market" is insane.
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Indeed. BTC is simply unfeasible for the volume of transactions Amazon operates, on the US alone.
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Hint: no one gives a shit about lightning.
If the only way to a scalable payment system for BTC is to build abstraction layers on top of it, then you're actually worse than just using Visa.
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Probably just picking up the peanuts (Score:2)
I assume they think allowing crypto paymen will earn them more money than it costs to support. Not necessarily any perception it will grow huge, just big enough.
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