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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Amazon Denies Report of Accepting Bitcoin As Payment (reuters.com) 45

Posted by BeauHD from the carefully-worded-denials dept.
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."
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Amazon Denies Report of Accepting Bitcoin As Payment More

Amazon Denies Report of Accepting Bitcoin As Payment

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  • Probably true (Score:4, Insightful)

    by north_by_midwest ( 7997468 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @08:38PM (#61623699)

    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)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @08:45PM (#61623709)

      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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fantas ( 7866870 )
      Hello colleagues, I am looking for a way to make money on the internet, I found when I visit this page [theladycrypto.com] that there are ways to make money with bitcoins in some gambling sites I want to know if that is true or what safer ways you can make money on the internet or that I You advise I have a lot of interest in increasing my earnings.

  • BS translation (Score:3)

    by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @09:07PM (#61623749)

    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."

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 )

      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.

      • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by Aighearach ( 97333 )

        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.

        • 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.

          • 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

            • Seems to be a running them not just on Slashdot but all social media and too an extent in real life. I am not sure what is up with these folks but wow I have never seen so many folks believe so wholeheartedly in their cause they will even disown family and friends. I had a troll on my comment thread recently that actually proved my argument while telling me I was wrong. Only thing left was nitpicking on my grammar. Lol its /. Not a peer reviewed journal.

            • You kept implying possibility they might take bitcoin, that's the issue. Dial down your autism knob from 11, sperg-boy.

        • Tripping all over yourself with some BS speculation on language, must suck to have to work so hard not to be a bag holder.

  • Pyrite Pete's failed prediction (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    On Monday April 26, 2021 @02:16AM UTC, Pyrite Pete[1] had said: [slashdot.org]

    Wait 1-2 months, and BTC will be twice its value.

    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.

  • Bitcoin is amusing but is too volatile for my taste.

  • AMZN will implement crypto-payment, there is no question. They can validate PoS transactions on AWS resources and pocket the fees. Win-win-win. Yeah, PoS is not quite there yet, but when it is AMZN will have their ducks-in-a-row (both internally and externally) to pull the trigger.

    • AMZN will implement crypto-payment, there is no question.

      Sorry, but why? Why could possibly Amazon gain from this?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        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

        • 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.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Entrope ( 68843 )

            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

            • 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.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Entrope ( 68843 )

                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

                • 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.

              • Might want too research Amazon Financial Services. They are not under Visas foot quite the opposite... AWS is used by Visa!
        • Umm you do know of Amazon Financial Services right. Amazon isn't paying Visa much more than Visa pays Amazon.

  • And some liar (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @12:32AM (#61624077)

    Just made a pretty penny of Bitcoin with thier fake news.

  • The prices in your cart would change minute to minute, too much risk with no real benefit to amazon. And what's the point of using what's supposed to be an anonymous payment method with Amazon, who already has your home and work address, credit cards, shopping habits.

  • This "market" is so blatantly manipulated right now that it legit shocks me anyone would be willing to put money in it.

    • 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

  • Anyone else remember that Mastercard was also working on some kind of crypto thing? Maybe it's connected...

  • 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.

  • Already a financial services company. They are not your average retailer they reached the pinnacle of offering Financial Services. Amazon isnâ(TM)t building a traditional bank that serves everyone. Instead, Amazon has taken the core components of a modern banking experience and tweaked them to suit Amazon customers (both merchants and consumers). In a sense, Amazon is building a bank for itself â" and that may be an even more compelling development than the company launching a deposit-holding ba
  • Yet they are hiring someone to create those plans in the future?

  • 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.

  • Re (Score:1)

    by Ultimer ( 8105522 )
    Well, it's worse for Amazon itself. I mean, just imagine the rise of Amazon after that. Everybody is going to discuss it, and the company would attract more clients. Of course, Amason is already a huge company, and it can work even better for the cryptocurrency since many people would see that even Amazon trusts it, and they are going to start trading on websites like Immediate Profit Aus [immediate-profit.net] to test the rumors.
  • Actually, it's quite depressing news. I would be happy if amazon confirmed that it is going to deal with bitcoin. Unfortunately, there are not so many large companies that are ready to step on the path of cryptocurrency. Most monopolists try to avoid such moments by the side. This is sad, but you can read more about it on this web resource [ironfx.com]. Of course, if you are interested, then you can find more information on this topic on the internet.

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