Amazon Denies Report of Accepting Bitcoin As Payment (reuters.com) 45
Amazon on Monday denied a media report saying the e-commerce giant was looking to accept bitcoin payments by the end of the year. Reuters reports: The report from London's City A.M. newspaper, citing an unnamed "insider," sent the world's biggest cryptocurrency up as much as 14.5% before it trimmed gains to last trade 6% higher at $37,684.04. "Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true," said a spokesperson from Amazon. "We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon." The company on July 22 posted a job opening for a digital currency and blockchain product lead. In a statement to Ars Technica, the Amazon spokesperson added: "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."
Probably true (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon’s payment acceptance is about making transactions as low effort as possible for as many customers as possible. Bitcoin and crypto in general are at the fair tail end of the mediums for transactions distribution and would have only a marginal impact on their business. Amazon would be far better for Bitcoin than Bitcoin would be for Amazon.
Re:Probably true (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon would be far better for Bitcoin than Bitcoin would be for Amazon.
Agreed. This sounds like a way to boost the currency and then cash out before the correction.
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BS translation (Score:3)
Allow me to translate. Amazon said, "Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true..."
That's basically a no comment. They did not deny that the speculation is fundamentally correct and accurate; they merely deny that it is 100% accurate. For example, they may have plans to accept bitcoin by December 14th. Or they may have plans to accept bitcoin by Jan 1st. All they have denied is that they have a specific policy to begin accepting bitcoin payments "by the end of the year," i.e. 11:59:59 December 31st.
It could even mean that they have an internally expressed desire to accept bitcoin payments "by the end of the year," but that their decision-making process does not result in "plans" until a bunch of steps are completed. For example, it is normal not to "plan" to "do" a thing at a certain time until you're actually ready to flip the switch and do it; before that, they're not "plans" they're just "planning."
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No. The statement they were commenting on was not 100 percent accurate, so it was inaccurate. None of the major crypto coins are money, including and Amazon only wants money. All the major bitcoins have serious issues and deficiencies for Amazon to ever accept them in lieu of money. Amazon thus has no interest in the major crypto coins and will never accept them.
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Why make such a stupid reply? What exactly is your quibble? That your English comprehension was too low to understand what I said?
You agree with what they said, but you didn't contradict what I said. So you don't get to say "no." Stick to "yer rong," it is as much as you can manage.
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I'm saying Amazon has zero interest in accepting bitcoin or any other major crypto coin, not the source of their interest in cryptocoins (slashdot edit box moved "bit" a few words to right). There interest would be in something that is really money, which none of the major crypto coins are.
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That does not contradict anything I said. You're a fucking idiot to be blathering about it. You said "no" to disagree with my comment. All the rest of that should be supporting your claim that I was wrong.
Instead, you just didn't comprehend what I said. And so you're blathering your general opinion about the subject.
Why do you think you need me to be wrong first? You didn't understand what I said, why do you believe it needs to be wrong? You could instead have said, "Yes, you're right, and I also think they
Re: BS translation (Score:2)
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You kept implying possibility they might take bitcoin, that's the issue. Dial down your autism knob from 11, sperg-boy.
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Re: BS translation (Score:2)
Pyrite Pete's failed prediction (Score:1, Interesting)
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. Three months ago. It is now sitting at about $37K.
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.
Ridiculous (Score:2)
Bitcoin is amusing but is too volatile for my taste.
this is a no-brainer (Score:2)
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AMZN will implement crypto-payment, there is no question.
Sorry, but why? Why could possibly Amazon gain from this?
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Credit card networks charge significant commissions on each sale. Using a cryptocurrency could, in theory, significantly reduce that. It raises the work needed by customers, though, and does sacrifice value-adds like dispute resolution and fraud insurance. At this point Amazon seems interested enough to pay someone as a full-time advocate for cryptocurrency, but not convinced that it will be workable.
They have a boatload of small transactions, so they can't be like Tesla and eat BTC commissions so easily
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Credit card networks charge significant commissions on each sale...
...and these are, end to end, still lower than BTC or other cryptocurrencies. Visa processes a monstrous number of transactions per day (vastly more than the BTC network), with a very low cost-per-transaction.
Now, make no mistake, i'm pretty sure that Amazon would love not to depend on Visa for transactions, but they're not going to switch unless the alternative makes any financial sense.
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Yes, credit card networks provide a much higher transaction rate at enormously lower cost than proof-of-work blockchains. But the price those networks charge merchants is much higher than their costs. Some of that delta consists of things that Amazon might be able to internalize -- like dispute resolution and fraud coverage, which I mentioned earlier. Other parts, at least in the US, are fringe benefits for the consumers that are used as promotional features of the cards -- 1% cash back or airline miles
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No, we're definitely not :) Visa charges Amazon ~1% of each processed transaction and, as you mentioned, they provide a (large) number of services on top of this as well. And that cost ends up being passed to the customer anyway.
If you think switching to crypto would alleviate Amazon's financial burden on this end, i have some bad news coming your way.
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My original comment stressed the "in theory" part of the argument. I am far from convinced that Amazon could, or would, fill all the rules that credit card networks perform. I am almost certain they won't do it for any proof-of-work coin. I think the cost/benefit analysis currently leans against doing it for proof-of-stake coins, not least because of lack of adoption and security concerns.
The market -- and governments -- are unlikely to accept an AmazonCoin, so Amazon would almost need to become a crypto
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It's the same argument i present when people ask "why isn't [insert government here] creating their own cryptocurrency?". The answer is: because it makes no sense whatsoever. None of the "benefits" of BTC et all help Amazon, a government, or any private entity in any way - for example, it's in their best interest to keep that ecosystem as tightly centralized as possible.
Re: this is a no-brainer (Score:2)
Re: this is a no-brainer (Score:2)
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Indeed.
A lot of people will end up learning important, albeit expensive, life lessons here.
And some liar (Score:4, Insightful)
Just made a pretty penny of Bitcoin with thier fake news.
Doubtful, they won't even take paypal (Score:2)
paypal sucks. (Score:2)
News which immediately made BTC nosedive by +10% (Score:2)
This "market" is so blatantly manipulated right now that it legit shocks me anyone would be willing to put money in it.
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I have given up being shocked by some peoples stupidity, and it only takes a small percentage to be stupid for this to happen. You explain to someone how it can't work as a currency, then they say its more like digital gold than currency, more like digital beanie babies, but at least you can play with beanie babies.
But just when you think it couldn't get more stupid, NFTs come along which seem taking the stupidest parts of art and crypto then boiling them down to their very essence of stupidity. What next N
Mastercard (Score:1)
Quote-unquote denial (Score:2)
Keep in mind, the sole source for this news was some random guy trolling so-called crypto journalists, [twimg.com] pretending as an Amazon insider. No one bothered to verify any of it.
Everything about the crypto market is so unprofessional it's almost laughable.
Excuse me but you do know Amazon is... (Score:2)
So, Amazon says, ~no current plans~ (Score:2)
purse.io (Score:2)
You've been able to buy stuff on Amazon with Bitcoin by using purse.io [purse.io] for years.
You can also 'purchase' Bitcoin this way pretty easily.
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