Amazon denies report of accepting Bitcoin as payment(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Amazon denies report of accepting Bitcoin as payment
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-denies-report-accepting-bitcoin-payment-2021-07-26/
175 comments
There is already an Amazon "coin". It's called your gift card balance.
If you mean they will try to move away from USD (or other national currencies), there is absolutely zero incentive for them to do so. And how will they pay their wholesalers, vendors, employees, taxes?
If you mean they will try to move away from USD (or other national currencies), there is absolutely zero incentive for them to do so. And how will they pay their wholesalers, vendors, employees, taxes?
Amazon gift cards are marketplace specific. You can't buy a gift card in the UK and use it in the US.
That's a restriction placed by Amazon itself. They could remove it tomorrow if they wanted to, and doing so would be a lot easier than creating their own currency.
Gift card balances are liabilities on the balance sheet of each country or regional office in which that card is valid. From a software standpoint it probably isn't much more than a flick of a switch. From a financial reconcialiation point of view however....
Not so fast.
If they allow that with USD et al, they're more liable in more "currently on the books" ways than if they started letting people send Ama-coin across the globe.
If they allow that with USD et al, they're more liable in more "currently on the books" ways than if they started letting people send Ama-coin across the globe.
I'm sure they'd want nothing more than to be able to pay their employees with amazon gift cards so the only place they can spend their earnings is at the company store.
I don't doubt that they love the company store model. I've been offered AWS credits in lieu of cash for contract work.... after the cash amount was agreed to in writing and work was performed.
Don't a lot of mechanical turk workers get paid in gift cards?
When Facebook tried to launch their own coin with Libra (now Diem) it went really badly, and they had lots of big names on-board, too: PayPal, eBay, Mastercard, Stripe, Visa. Diem seems to be battling on (maybe they want to make it the currency of their "metaverse") but how much do you hear about it these days?
And that was when the FTC wasn't chaired by Lisa Khan.
And that was when the FTC wasn't chaired by Lisa Khan.
The difference is that Facebook presented a solution in search of a problem. Even today, browsing through the Diem site, there's a ton of vague marketing speak and zero actual things I can do with it.
In contrast, "use this coin to buy anything on Amazon" is a massive product from the second it launches.
In contrast, "use this coin to buy anything on Amazon" is a massive product from the second it launches.
What's wrong the coins I got issued from the federal reserve? I can already exchange them for things offered by Amazon and a whole bunch of other places. Why would I want to exchange them for a glorified Amazon gift card?
It's so strange reading these kinds of comments from people who've never transacted in Canadian Tire Money. Fungible scrip coupons have already been successful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Tire_money
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Tire_money
Gift cards and gift certificates are examples of scrip coupons
I would like to have thought BezosBucks, like the Forever Stamp, would have been inflation proof.
> What's wrong the coins I got issued from the federal reserve?
They are owned by someone who doesn't understand how one thing can be "good" without another thing in the same category being "bad".
They are owned by someone who doesn't understand how one thing can be "good" without another thing in the same category being "bad".
Centralized. Manipulated. Unpredictable issuance. Subject to censorship.
Among a few.
Among a few.
> Centralized. Manipulated.
There is widespread manipulation in the crypo market. The difference with crypto is that there are no regulations that even attempt to hinder it.
https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-join-a-crypto-pump-and-dum...
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lbzdn7/scam...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-of-a-pump-and-du...
> Unpredictable issuance.
Perhaps in theory, but USD has proven to be a far less volatile store of value than Bitcoin and Etherium, which have both been through the equivalent of hyperinflation and hyperdeflation over the past decade.
> Subject to censorship.
Currency is not subject to censorship, such a thing would be impossible. Certain payment providers have refused to process payments to various individuals, but such a thing would be possible in the crypto space as well.
There is widespread manipulation in the crypo market. The difference with crypto is that there are no regulations that even attempt to hinder it.
https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-join-a-crypto-pump-and-dum...
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/lbzdn7/scam...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-of-a-pump-and-du...
> Unpredictable issuance.
Perhaps in theory, but USD has proven to be a far less volatile store of value than Bitcoin and Etherium, which have both been through the equivalent of hyperinflation and hyperdeflation over the past decade.
> Subject to censorship.
Currency is not subject to censorship, such a thing would be impossible. Certain payment providers have refused to process payments to various individuals, but such a thing would be possible in the crypto space as well.
If you look at a graph from 1 2 or 3 years for USD and Some popular cryptos it gets really obvious which one loses relative value and which one doubles or tripples value every other year.
USD is a horrible value storage in the last year's if you deal outside of USD
USD is a horrible value storage in the last year's if you deal outside of USD
> but USD has proven to be a far less volatile store of value than Bitcoin
If by less volatile you mean gradually losing value, I mean yeah.. But is that a better store of value?
> such a thing would be possible in the crypto space as well.
Nope, that is literally impossible with Bitcoin. Hitler could open up a shop, and no one could stop him from receiving payments.
If by less volatile you mean gradually losing value, I mean yeah.. But is that a better store of value?
> such a thing would be possible in the crypto space as well.
Nope, that is literally impossible with Bitcoin. Hitler could open up a shop, and no one could stop him from receiving payments.
Hey, FB employee here (views my own). I don't think Diem is necessarily in search of a problem:
- Other payment systems like PayPal/Venmo/Zelle are for P2P domestic use only - you can't send money cross-borders.
- Paypal/Venmo requires you to have a bank account. Diem doesn't, and so part of Diem's mission is to serve the un-banked.
- This is a little pedantic, but PayPal/Venmo/Zelle/Square Cash are closed ecosystems. You can't send money from one to the other, for example. Diem is a protocol that you can interact with using any wallet, not just Novi.
Not being paid to post this or anything. I just think Diem is not well advertised haha
- Other payment systems like PayPal/Venmo/Zelle are for P2P domestic use only - you can't send money cross-borders.
- Paypal/Venmo requires you to have a bank account. Diem doesn't, and so part of Diem's mission is to serve the un-banked.
- This is a little pedantic, but PayPal/Venmo/Zelle/Square Cash are closed ecosystems. You can't send money from one to the other, for example. Diem is a protocol that you can interact with using any wallet, not just Novi.
Not being paid to post this or anything. I just think Diem is not well advertised haha
> I don't think Diem is necessarily in search of a problem.
I think the problem with Diem is not that it doesn't fill a market role, it's that the target market, in general, knows how evil Facebook is, and would prefer a "cleaner" alternative. The problem with doing dodgey stuff with user data for years and years is that you gain a reputation, and then even if a small subset of your massive super organization makes a really good pure product, that product still inherits the stench from the parent. We don't trust the Zuck, and until fairly recently the target market for Diem were almost entirely people tech savvy enough to understand the depths to which Facebook operates in.
Imagine if Google came out with a new crypto-coin, and with all the soul and creativity a bloated bureaucracy can muster, called it "GCoin", a "New way to shop and get tracked!". Now, many normal people would stay away from GCoin purely because they know it would be in the GGraveyard in two years, but the rest of the target market would think," Ya know, Google has been absolutely evil this last decade or so, building their business model around surveiling us and toying with our emotions to get us to buy useless shit, while slowly trading away any uniqueness they ever had for fun primary marketing colors in a thousand different patterns. I think I'll pass on this GCoin bullshit...". That's how we feel about Diem. Except possibly not quite as angry, because at least Facebook has given us a figurehead to hate, instead of the faceless, souless, primary colored evil that is Google.
I think the problem with Diem is not that it doesn't fill a market role, it's that the target market, in general, knows how evil Facebook is, and would prefer a "cleaner" alternative. The problem with doing dodgey stuff with user data for years and years is that you gain a reputation, and then even if a small subset of your massive super organization makes a really good pure product, that product still inherits the stench from the parent. We don't trust the Zuck, and until fairly recently the target market for Diem were almost entirely people tech savvy enough to understand the depths to which Facebook operates in.
Imagine if Google came out with a new crypto-coin, and with all the soul and creativity a bloated bureaucracy can muster, called it "GCoin", a "New way to shop and get tracked!". Now, many normal people would stay away from GCoin purely because they know it would be in the GGraveyard in two years, but the rest of the target market would think," Ya know, Google has been absolutely evil this last decade or so, building their business model around surveiling us and toying with our emotions to get us to buy useless shit, while slowly trading away any uniqueness they ever had for fun primary marketing colors in a thousand different patterns. I think I'll pass on this GCoin bullshit...". That's how we feel about Diem. Except possibly not quite as angry, because at least Facebook has given us a figurehead to hate, instead of the faceless, souless, primary colored evil that is Google.
Nope, the problem with Diem is it's creators do not seem to understand Bitcoins appeal: permissionless transfer of value.
The solution already exists... there's thousands of crypto coins already. If fb hasn't released a coin yet at this point they never will. They're frozen in ice by the threat of regulatory crackdown.
It's easier to open a bank account than to make a Facebook account. Which I just assume is or will be necessary for Diem
Why is that a massive product? Genuine question. The areas I could see that being useful don’t have significant Amazon infrastructure anyway (and that infrastructure would need to be built up for a coin to be valuable), and in the US, Europe, Asia, I can’t see the benefit of an Amazon coin versus any other payment form.
But I’m genuinely curious, why is this a massive product for anything more than a weird form of money laundering?
But I’m genuinely curious, why is this a massive product for anything more than a weird form of money laundering?
More so if it's "use this coin to buy anything on Amazon and get 10% off all regular prices"
I doubt sellers will want to accept it. You can't pay your taxes with Bezos-bucks.
I assume when I buy something from an Amazon merchant, Amazon pays them in their local currency, regardless of which currency I chose to pay with. If they've got BezoBucks now, I assume paying with those still sends USD to US vendors and UKP to UK vendors and EUR to European vendors, etc.
I still don't see a big upside for Amazon, but merchants wouldn't need to accept it. And of course, Amazon could incentivize merchants to use it. Maybe if you take it, you get 1% more value than if you take USD and spend it on the site/AWS.
I still don't see a big upside for Amazon, but merchants wouldn't need to accept it. And of course, Amazon could incentivize merchants to use it. Maybe if you take it, you get 1% more value than if you take USD and spend it on the site/AWS.
What value do BezoBucks add in this scenario? They can already convert USD to other currencies to pay their vendors. Just like Facebook's cryptocurrency it's just a solution in search of a problem.
Well if I'm a small Amazon merchant, like maybe I just sell my used books, and I'm an Amazon customer too, if Amazon could send me $100 for my monthly sales, and I'm planning to spend $101 on Amazon this month anyway...
If they send me 101 Bezobucks instead, I'm happy because they gave me $101 of value; they're happy because for that $101 purchase, they got $100 value; if I paid with a rewards credit card, they would probably get $98-$99.
Why it would need to be a cryptocoin thing instead of just a gift card/credit, I don't know. Cryptocoins are hot for reasons that don't resonate with me. Maybe some way around gift card laws, and if they can back into foreign remittances without needing a money transmital license, it could be useful.
If they send me 101 Bezobucks instead, I'm happy because they gave me $101 of value; they're happy because for that $101 purchase, they got $100 value; if I paid with a rewards credit card, they would probably get $98-$99.
Why it would need to be a cryptocoin thing instead of just a gift card/credit, I don't know. Cryptocoins are hot for reasons that don't resonate with me. Maybe some way around gift card laws, and if they can back into foreign remittances without needing a money transmital license, it could be useful.
Hedge against the dollar backed by commodities effectively.
Imagine if the dollar fluctuated widely (say because of inflation) but BezosBucks does not. Your buying power stays the same (while BezosBucks becomes more expensive to buy into over time).
Imagine if the dollar fluctuated widely (say because of inflation) but BezosBucks does not. Your buying power stays the same (while BezosBucks becomes more expensive to buy into over time).
You can't pay taxes in bezos-bucks right now, but you maybe able to in the future
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-11/miami-may...
Amazon already have an internal currency in the form of its store card.
I doubt sellers would say no to a sale if a client offered to purchase it with a blockchain store card.
I doubt sellers would say no to a sale if a client offered to purchase it with a blockchain store card.
There's no point to using a blockchain in this scenario, and lots of good reasons not to.
Facebook's coin is postponed not dead. Their big problem was that they tried to grab too much power at one time. Having a company create a currency gives it too much power. Think about a company that has billions of users and they all would be forced to use FB's currency. Eventually it would be it's own country with all the power that goes with that. Politicly, no country is going to easily accept that.
Now think about a currency that's used internally and slowly it gets released by the company and used by all. By the time people started fighting against it it would be too late to stop.
Now think about a currency that's used internally and slowly it gets released by the company and used by all. By the time people started fighting against it it would be too late to stop.
> Now think about a currency that's used internally and slowly it gets released by the company and used by all.
You really think facebook employees using it internally would mean other people would accept it too?
You really think facebook employees using it internally would mean other people would accept it too?
> Facebook, PayPal, eBay
I don’t see anything going good, PR wise, with those three in one team
I don’t see anything going good, PR wise, with those three in one team
> It makes 0 sense since there's too much volatility plus it's open to manipulation by outsiders.
It makes 0 sense only if you assume that they will hodl the coins, which makes no sense if you're using it exclusively to settle a transaction.
You don't need to be expose to the crypto volatility to accept it as a payment method, in fact I don't see any risk involved as long as you find a way to immediately convert your crypto to the fiat currency of your choice.
It makes 0 sense only if you assume that they will hodl the coins, which makes no sense if you're using it exclusively to settle a transaction.
You don't need to be expose to the crypto volatility to accept it as a payment method, in fact I don't see any risk involved as long as you find a way to immediately convert your crypto to the fiat currency of your choice.
It's also not like it's part of btc's design to be volatile. Maybe one day the USD will be too volatile compared to a crypto that a significant number of people adopt. Never say never.
Do people not remember Amazon Coin?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin
That wasn't a "coin" in the context of this discussion. As the wiki correctly points out, it was a gift card, nothing more. It couldn't gain or lose value. It was tied to a specific dollar amount.
> It couldn't gain or lose value. It was tied to a specific dollar amount.
Like a stable coin?
Like a stable coin?
No, because it was actually backed by Amazon instead of by hopes and dreams like stable coins
"as its primary virtual coin"
idk why you think it needs to come down to this, like its a big stance. They sell stuff. They will take whatever form of payment you want to accomplish this just like multiple fiat currencies are accepted by companies. If they accepted bitcoin it would be a casual add on of a payment type.
idk why you think it needs to come down to this, like its a big stance. They sell stuff. They will take whatever form of payment you want to accomplish this just like multiple fiat currencies are accepted by companies. If they accepted bitcoin it would be a casual add on of a payment type.
What value does a virtual coin they maintain have for them and us consumers?
Think about why countries have their own currency and don't automatically adopt some other country's money and you can start to figure out why it's advantageous to create your own coin. Historically it has been a huge problem for countries that let their citizens make their own money so they make it illegal. I don't know why that's changed recently but as long as it's legal companies will create their own. It really does become free money for the company.
[deleted]
I'm not so sure. I would be surprised if they made their own coin given the regulatory scrutiny that would bring. I don't think they'll necessarily use Bitcoin though.
> Amazon is perfectly positioned to create its own virtual coin.
Which by definition would be centralised, and so wouldn't need a blockchain at all?
Which by definition would be centralised, and so wouldn't need a blockchain at all?
> It makes 0 sense since there's too much volatility plus it's open to manipulation by outsiders.
So what? They don't have to keep it in Bitcoin.
It makes lots of sense as they would safe millions on fees if done right.
> Amazon is perfectly positioned to create its own virtual coin
They could, and there's even a big change they would. We've seen big companies do dumb stuff. e.g. FB Libra project.
So what? They don't have to keep it in Bitcoin.
It makes lots of sense as they would safe millions on fees if done right.
> Amazon is perfectly positioned to create its own virtual coin
They could, and there's even a big change they would. We've seen big companies do dumb stuff. e.g. FB Libra project.
There is very little consumer demand to buy things in Bitcoin, esp in the US.
Maybe elsewhere tho…like South America or Africa
Maybe elsewhere tho…like South America or Africa
Even less there.
What do you mean?
Argentina has had over 30% inflation EACH YEAR for many years in a row, for instance
Argentina has had over 30% inflation EACH YEAR for many years in a row, for instance
They still have US dollars. They have less access to crypto and less ways to use it. They are poorer and can suffer market fluctuations worse. They don't have a government attempting to shut down fraudulent crypto actors in the way the US is.
https://medium.com/muunwallet/muun-releases-non-custodial-bi...
They are actually at the forefront of adoption of The Lightning Network.
They are actually at the forefront of adoption of The Lightning Network.
Yes they “have usd” but from
What I gather it’s not the norm to get paid in USD
Crypto or no crypto, they aren't going to be paid in anything but Argentinian fiat.
So…with only a internet access, you can convert that shitty fiat to Bitcoin.
If you dollar cost average Bitcoin, it has outperformed the usd and will very likely continue to do so in the future.
If you dollar cost average Bitcoin, it has outperformed the usd and will very likely continue to do so in the future.
And better to convert shitty fiat into something decentralized and not controlled by some other country
When I worked at Audible I remember a particular hackathon where a team created a way to pay their membership to the platform in Bitcoin.
The executive team at the time was made visibly uncomfortable by the idea while it was being presented. They expressed concern over the process involved in handling fraud and essentially said the business model didn't support a Bitcoin-based payments system. They even had the nerve to inquire about how accepting payments in Bitcoin benefits the customer.
Needless to say, the team did not win. In fact, my team did - but we probably shouldn't have.
Then the Amazon Coin [0] came out later that year, which to this day very few people actually are aware even exists.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin
The executive team at the time was made visibly uncomfortable by the idea while it was being presented. They expressed concern over the process involved in handling fraud and essentially said the business model didn't support a Bitcoin-based payments system. They even had the nerve to inquire about how accepting payments in Bitcoin benefits the customer.
Needless to say, the team did not win. In fact, my team did - but we probably shouldn't have.
Then the Amazon Coin [0] came out later that year, which to this day very few people actually are aware even exists.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin
Amazon Coin isn't a cryptocurrency, so it seems irrelevant to the conversation.
Companies creating their own coin is like having an intranet... intranets mostly suck and have no real value. There's a reason the www is superior - because it's fully open.
Of course this would be the headline HN would pick. But read what else the spokesperson had to say: “We’re inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon,” a spokesperson for the company told CNN Business. “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.”
Will Amazon accept Bitcoin for payment before the end of the year, as rumored? No. Does Amazon hate cryptocurrency and think it's a scam? Also no. Will Amazon accept some form of cryptocurrency as payment at some point in the future? Given this statement, possibly yes.
Will Amazon accept Bitcoin for payment before the end of the year, as rumored? No. Does Amazon hate cryptocurrency and think it's a scam? Also no. Will Amazon accept some form of cryptocurrency as payment at some point in the future? Given this statement, possibly yes.
A cloud provider's business model is more-or-less selling CPU cycles to customers, in a variety of flavours.
Regardless of their opinion as to "think cryptocurrency is a scam" they can make money selling CPU cycles to people who have bought into the cryptocurrency thing. Bonus if the cloud provider can offer "managed blockchain" flavour rather than "here's some vanilla infrastructure, you can run your blockchain stuff on that, just as well as you can on your laptop."
It's the old "Selling pickaxes during a gold rush" plan. You don't actually have to worry so much as to if there's really gold to be found. Just if the miners buying pickaxes think that there is.
Regardless of their opinion as to "think cryptocurrency is a scam" they can make money selling CPU cycles to people who have bought into the cryptocurrency thing. Bonus if the cloud provider can offer "managed blockchain" flavour rather than "here's some vanilla infrastructure, you can run your blockchain stuff on that, just as well as you can on your laptop."
It's the old "Selling pickaxes during a gold rush" plan. You don't actually have to worry so much as to if there's really gold to be found. Just if the miners buying pickaxes think that there is.
It baffles me the amount of blind fanatical hate Bitcoin gets in HN.
It shouldn't though, as most of them live in first world countries and have never experienced the calamities of hyper inflation and wealth seizure by the government.
It shouldn't though, as most of them live in first world countries and have never experienced the calamities of hyper inflation and wealth seizure by the government.
> It shouldn't though, as most of them live in first world countries and have never experienced the calamities of hyper inflation
yes, they're used to monetary stability
unless they've used Bitcoin
yes, they're used to monetary stability
unless they've used Bitcoin
Stability is so relative. Comparing my portfolio to 1 year ago. My dollars and euros lost value, all my crypto is worth at least twice as much. I don't care about stable if this is the long term game.
> My dollars and euros lost value
How'd you fuck that up the market has been shooting up every week?
How'd you fuck that up the market has been shooting up every week?
Not compared to CHF no, USD is on a stable but slow down for me.
>dollars and euros lost value
>crypto is worth at least twice as much
of the currency that lost value? do you see the irony here?
>crypto is worth at least twice as much
of the currency that lost value? do you see the irony here?
I think they are just used to compliance.
> Does Amazon hate cryptocurrency and think it's a scam? Also no.
Isn't it possible to think BTC is a scam while believing other cryptocurrencies are not a scam?
Isn't it possible to think BTC is a scam while believing other cryptocurrencies are not a scam?
It is possible to think anything. But that would be a very strange position to take. Bitcoin is pretty clearly the least likely cryptocurrency to be a scam.
I'm guessing if you are Amazon's size, you are thinking about doing (whatever FB's bundle of goods crypto was called) and doing it right. And skimming a percentage.
That is, a more centralized crypto that Amazon controls. Or at least one that has a known and stable conversion rate set by some entity (which could be Amazon) to other goods.
That is, a more centralized crypto that Amazon controls. Or at least one that has a known and stable conversion rate set by some entity (which could be Amazon) to other goods.
The first thing that came to mind when hearing they were looking for a blockchain lead was they were hiring for an AWS service. Why would a company that operates famously on thin margins (not the AWS side of things) accept a "currency" that could take a 7% price swing in a day.
AWS's QLDB and Managed Blockchain have been in GA since 2019: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-managed-blockcha...
I don't see how that matters in the sense of Amazon coming close to accepting another form of payment. Just because they have a team that specializes in managing hosted merkle trees doesn't mean they finally closed the gap preventing them from sending and receiving BTC for physical products.
You just plug the payment backend into the mega deep liquidity pools in DeFi and hedge out in real-time. It’s actually significantly easier than dealing with foreign currency in the traditional banking system.
Last I checked, all DeFi activity could be measured in billions of USD. That's not "mega deep". It's barely a blip in the global financial system. It's not even enough for a few months of Amazon revenue.
I think the job posting was listed as being in the payments division though.
For speculation.
Wouldn’t they be able to do that without integrating Bitcoin as a payment gateway?
Yeah. If they were interested in speculating using Bitcoin, they would just buy Bitcoin, instead of essentially letting their end customers decide, wouldn't they?
Unless you pull the tesla trick of accepting payment in BTC but reserving the right to refund in either BTC or USD -- granting yourself a soft option on BTCUSD. Altough surely not worth the effort unless you have a lot of refund flow.
[deleted]
[deleted]
you know you can do much more with blockchain tech than just payments?
My hunch is that they could be building an NFT marketplace. It makes sense.
My hunch is that they could be building an NFT marketplace. It makes sense.
If they're getting into NFT it's to sell shovels to the speculators.
If you think about it, then this fits Amazons's existing business exactly: To provide a marketplace for people who buy things at cost prices and then sell them for a higher price.
If they really want to lean into the reputation they are getting for being a platform for counterfeits and scams then NFTs are the next logical step
counterfeits on Amazon? Are you kidding me? sarcastic smile
Seriously though, it's easy to verify if a NFT is genuine - one of the features of Blockchain tech.
Seriously though, it's easy to verify if a NFT is genuine - one of the features of Blockchain tech.
I don’t know what you mean by genuine, non-counterfeit?
You can check that a token exists on chain, but that tells you nothing about whether the person who issued the token owns the copyright to the work. Ie, no guarantees of authenticity.
You can check that a token exists on chain, but that tells you nothing about whether the person who issued the token owns the copyright to the work. Ie, no guarantees of authenticity.
If e-book and amazon video/music licenses were portable, resellable AND platform agnostic (can use my license and exercise it with a different content host to certify I am allowed to download that content), I would buy a bunch of them.
I currently have no reason to want to own an NFT, and never "buy" content from amazon because it is locked to my account and has no real permanence.
This would certainly be a killer app for NFTs, but I doubt Amazon is willing to cede enough control to actually do this.
I currently have no reason to want to own an NFT, and never "buy" content from amazon because it is locked to my account and has no real permanence.
This would certainly be a killer app for NFTs, but I doubt Amazon is willing to cede enough control to actually do this.
NFTs as a decentralized DRM scheme would have the same weaknesses as traditional DRM systems. Centralization is also literally the entire point of DRM, so no one has an incentive to try to make it work.
That's amazing. If intellectual property licensing worked like this, it would be a lot more bearable.
Someone is going to make a hundred billion dollar business doing this.
Those first few years kissing the asses of IP conglomerates enough to get them to try it will be horrible, and then when you prove success competition will be fierce as there is no moat: not a business I would want to start. But I'd certainly be a customer.
Those first few years kissing the asses of IP conglomerates enough to get them to try it will be horrible, and then when you prove success competition will be fierce as there is no moat: not a business I would want to start. But I'd certainly be a customer.
Less Amazon than the content owners: NFTs give them no additional revenue, still have the same hosting costs, and dramatically increase the odds of a compromise leaking their material permanently.
> NFTs give them no additional revenue
Portable digital assets could be priced higher and would have more demand.
> still have the same hosting costs
Do content owners have to pay amazon hosting costs? I thought that was included in their platform fee.
> dramatically increase the odds of a compromise leaking their material permanently
The odds of leak are 100% already, so this isn't true.
Portable digital assets could be priced higher and would have more demand.
> still have the same hosting costs
Do content owners have to pay amazon hosting costs? I thought that was included in their platform fee.
> dramatically increase the odds of a compromise leaking their material permanently
The odds of leak are 100% already, so this isn't true.
Right now, a company gives their movie to a reseller and gets a fraction of a sale price. The reseller pays for hosting out of their percentage.
NFTs don’t help with storage because blockchains are both inefficient and global so you still need to pay someone to host the actual media files and only give them to people with valid keys.
Worse from a rights-holder’s perspective, blockchains don’t allow you to remove content. That means that any time something gets compromised, you have valid keys floating around with no way to remove them. It’s true that leaks happen anyway but there are some key differences: these are always the best quality and they look like legitimate usage so it’s harder to block or track the way they go after torrent users. Anything which reduces risk will increase the number of people bootlegging by a hefty margin.
You can do things like, say, having the key in the blockchain be what you use to request a temporary key with lots of rate-limiting but if you’re building the infrastructure for a separate login and distribution system anyway, it comes back to the question of what benefit you get from the extra cost and risk of using NFTs rather than just using that system. If the answer isn’t “a lot more money”, nobody is going to jump on a system which is less reliable and harder to use.
NFTs don’t help with storage because blockchains are both inefficient and global so you still need to pay someone to host the actual media files and only give them to people with valid keys.
Worse from a rights-holder’s perspective, blockchains don’t allow you to remove content. That means that any time something gets compromised, you have valid keys floating around with no way to remove them. It’s true that leaks happen anyway but there are some key differences: these are always the best quality and they look like legitimate usage so it’s harder to block or track the way they go after torrent users. Anything which reduces risk will increase the number of people bootlegging by a hefty margin.
You can do things like, say, having the key in the blockchain be what you use to request a temporary key with lots of rate-limiting but if you’re building the infrastructure for a separate login and distribution system anyway, it comes back to the question of what benefit you get from the extra cost and risk of using NFTs rather than just using that system. If the answer isn’t “a lot more money”, nobody is going to jump on a system which is less reliable and harder to use.
While that would be amazing to have, the problem isn't lack of technology (or more specifically blockchain technology). Amazon could very easily set up a marketplace to facilitate transfer of ebooks, movies and more to other accounts. They could also issue "tokens" for redemption on other platforms. All this is possible with good old fashioned CRUD.
Hmm, I would value these more if they weren't managed within an amazon-controlled database, but you're right that they could offer a lot of the value of this with a centralized solution if they wanted to.
Just replying to myself. I find it amusing to be downvoted so much, yet sparking so much discussion. It seems like NFTs evoke strong reactions from both pro and anti camps. Obviously they are an extremely disruptive tech, especially in the way we view ownership and also they derail the whole "cryptocurrencies are not useful for anything" argument. So they disrupt not only those against cryptocurrency, but also those who are entrenched in cryptocurrency that does not have the ability to support NFTs
Does it really make sense? NFTs have not been proven to be anything except hype (really well selling hype for a while, but nothing but hype nonetheless).
NFT's are baseball cards that go away the second the servers storing the actual data go away. sure you have record that you own the token that confers no actual ownership (physical, copyright, or trademark.) setting on the underlying blockchain assuming that blockchain continues to operate but the data itself is still as ephemeral as the server hosting it.
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NFTs don't exist, though.
If more than 51% of BTC mining eventually takes place on machines rented from AWS, could Bezos flip a switch and take control of the blockchain (e.g. by shutting down the miners running on the AWS hardware, and rebooting it all with miners he controls?)
51% miners have limited control over blockchain. They can censor blockchain by not allowing some transactions (and forking whenever other miner tries to add those transactons). They can undo some transactions by making a fork before that transaction has happened and eventually forcing the world to switch to their chain.
All those cases are highly visible. I don't know what will happen if someone will attempt to force-fork blockchain. But I highly doubt that 51% miners could monetize that power.
Another point: bitcoin miners are using ASICs, not GPU or CPU. Those ASICs are useless bricks outside of bitcoin mining. If bitcoin miners will collapse bitcoin, they'll lose their ASICs investments. AWS can sell their CPUs to anyone, but mining bitcoin on their CPUs is pointless. To mine bitcoin, you need to buy or build ASICs. And you need bitcoin to stay afloat to return investments from those ASICs.
The only danger is if some actor have lot of money (e.g. US government) and want to kill bitcoin. They can rent some fabs, build lots of ASICs and wreak havoc. They'll spend a lot of money, but probably they'll achieve that goal.
All those cases are highly visible. I don't know what will happen if someone will attempt to force-fork blockchain. But I highly doubt that 51% miners could monetize that power.
Another point: bitcoin miners are using ASICs, not GPU or CPU. Those ASICs are useless bricks outside of bitcoin mining. If bitcoin miners will collapse bitcoin, they'll lose their ASICs investments. AWS can sell their CPUs to anyone, but mining bitcoin on their CPUs is pointless. To mine bitcoin, you need to buy or build ASICs. And you need bitcoin to stay afloat to return investments from those ASICs.
The only danger is if some actor have lot of money (e.g. US government) and want to kill bitcoin. They can rent some fabs, build lots of ASICs and wreak havoc. They'll spend a lot of money, but probably they'll achieve that goal.
You are almost entirely right, but ASICs can be used to mine other currencies which use the same hashing algorithm.
Bitcoin and a handful of others use SHA256.
Bitcoin and a handful of others use SHA256.
Nobody is legally mining on AWS - the margins would put you behind everyone with dedicated hardware, not to mention the lack of ASICs.
That said, if that happened, think about what would happen next: there’d be a mass exodus of customers and breach of contract lawsuits, governments would bring charges under anti-hacking laws, and the rest of the community would agree to rewrite history back to the point before that happened. He’d lose orders of magnitude more money than he could possibly gain, especially given Bitcoin’s limited liquidity.
That last part is key: we have no reason to think Bezos is a crook, or willing to break his customer’s trust, but say he has been completely compromised by Dr. Evil. This still makes no sense because nobody _wants_ a bunch of random hashes — they want to buy things. Even if he could commit the theft of the century, there wouldn’t be any place to spend it with enough volume to make it worth as much as Bezos makes every second.
That said, if that happened, think about what would happen next: there’d be a mass exodus of customers and breach of contract lawsuits, governments would bring charges under anti-hacking laws, and the rest of the community would agree to rewrite history back to the point before that happened. He’d lose orders of magnitude more money than he could possibly gain, especially given Bitcoin’s limited liquidity.
That last part is key: we have no reason to think Bezos is a crook, or willing to break his customer’s trust, but say he has been completely compromised by Dr. Evil. This still makes no sense because nobody _wants_ a bunch of random hashes — they want to buy things. Even if he could commit the theft of the century, there wouldn’t be any place to spend it with enough volume to make it worth as much as Bezos makes every second.
Exodus of customers? I would bet against that. Flood of contract lawsuits, not likely. Anti-hacking laws used against miners or aws?
You don’t think there’d be a trust issue from showing a willingness to make unauthorized changes to your servers? From breaking their public promises about security, many of which are written into contracts?
Now think carefully about the implications of doing that to steal money. It’s not like they’re hypothetically doing that to hot fix a critical security issue - it’d literally be to profit from betraying their customers’ trust!
Now think carefully about the implications of doing that to steal money. It’s not like they’re hypothetically doing that to hot fix a critical security issue - it’d literally be to profit from betraying their customers’ trust!
I doubt they're getting into mining, their AWS product is in hosted ledgers and things like that: https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/
AWS does not rent out bitcoin mining rigs and really has no incentive to. To mine at a profit requires expensive, extremely specialized single-purpose hardware that can only be used for bitcoin mining and can't be re-used for anything else.
Not without destroying trust in AWS
Yeah, the idea that Jeff Bezos is going to pull an exit scam on the entire bitcoin ecosystem is ridiculous. He already has all the money.
No.
What would accepting a non-Amazon controlled crypto even do for them? The transaction fees for BTC are low right now but wildly variable, and would add another layer of complication to Amazon's systems. Amazon probably has the lowest transaction fees in the world, I would guess, based on the volume of transactions it has. It has credit card partnerships with a number of banks and issuers.
The speculative nature of accepting Bitcoin or another crypto is all well and good, but I can’t see shareholders super stoked to see the less profitable side of the business accepting money this way. If Amazon wanted to speculate on BTC, it could buy it same as any other entity.
Sure, if Amazon had its own coin, that would be interesting, but not only would that face the same scrutiny that Facebook's Libre faced (possibly even worse, given Amazon is the third or fourth richest company), for Amazon users, there is no clear incentive to use an Amazon coin versus a normal credit card or whatever local payment systems Amazon might use. Speaking as a consumer, I really don’t care about what payment method is most profitable for any of the places I shop. In fact, I almost exclusively use American Express, which has the highest transaction fees (obv. I have a Mastercard and a Visa for certain countries), because it also gives me the most value/best protection/rewards I enjoy. Hell, I have an Amazon American Express card that gives me 5% back on all Amazon purchases — so any Amazon coin or other crypto would have to offer me a better return.
I get the appeal in areas where Amazon isn’t as dominant as it is, in say, the US. But even then, I would think more basic logistical issues relate to storing and delivering goods would be higher priority than a payment method that has lower transaction fees.
The speculative nature of accepting Bitcoin or another crypto is all well and good, but I can’t see shareholders super stoked to see the less profitable side of the business accepting money this way. If Amazon wanted to speculate on BTC, it could buy it same as any other entity.
Sure, if Amazon had its own coin, that would be interesting, but not only would that face the same scrutiny that Facebook's Libre faced (possibly even worse, given Amazon is the third or fourth richest company), for Amazon users, there is no clear incentive to use an Amazon coin versus a normal credit card or whatever local payment systems Amazon might use. Speaking as a consumer, I really don’t care about what payment method is most profitable for any of the places I shop. In fact, I almost exclusively use American Express, which has the highest transaction fees (obv. I have a Mastercard and a Visa for certain countries), because it also gives me the most value/best protection/rewards I enjoy. Hell, I have an Amazon American Express card that gives me 5% back on all Amazon purchases — so any Amazon coin or other crypto would have to offer me a better return.
I get the appeal in areas where Amazon isn’t as dominant as it is, in say, the US. But even then, I would think more basic logistical issues relate to storing and delivering goods would be higher priority than a payment method that has lower transaction fees.
Sounds like a nightmare - if Amazon did accept BTC, if you purchased something in BTC would Amazon send you a 1040 at the end of the year for capital gains? If you made returns you could see capital losses? Would they be obligated to send you BTC or the denominated fiat in USD (or whatever currency) at the time of purchase. If they can choose then obviously they're going to choose such that it's in their advantage.
I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it used to be that on eBay it was a nightmare to do a similar thing with foreign currencies. You'd have a foreign transaction fee and an additional currency conversion fee.
Some people complained additionally that when you received a refund it was received in the seller's currency so you had to pay again to have it converted back to the original currency.
I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it used to be that on eBay it was a nightmare to do a similar thing with foreign currencies. You'd have a foreign transaction fee and an additional currency conversion fee.
Some people complained additionally that when you received a refund it was received in the seller's currency so you had to pay again to have it converted back to the original currency.
It's already a solved problem. Most bitcoin payment processors allow you to get paid in USD (basically doing the conversion for you). If you decide to accept bitcoins directly, you don't get capital gains/losses unless you sell.
I believe the parent comment is referring to sending customers a tax form, not Amazon. Someone who bought Bitcoin for a dollar a decade ago and now buys a GPU with that Bitcoin would absolutely have to pay capital gains on the increased value of the Bitcoin as it's effectively liquidating it.
Yes, exactly. I believe people are misunderstanding my comment. No matter what processor you use, depending on how Amazon decides to refund you it will absolutely become a hassle for the customer. It's just inherent - it's not really a "problem" tho, not anymore so than trading stocks.
If you bought Bitcoin for a buck a decade ago and bought a GPU for Christmas and decided on New Year's Day you'd like to return it, but Bitcoin changed price you'd have to deal with a lot of tax stuff. There's no payment processor that can resolve this.
If you bought Bitcoin for a buck a decade ago and bought a GPU for Christmas and decided on New Year's Day you'd like to return it, but Bitcoin changed price you'd have to deal with a lot of tax stuff. There's no payment processor that can resolve this.
Just say all refunds are in fiat?
What does that give you other than higher fees?
1. the fees can be lower, especially if you're talking about high value and/or lightning network transactions. I sampled two processors and they both charge 1% fee (compared to 3%-4%) and offer free fiat/crypto withdraws.
2. not having to worry about chargebacks
2. not having to worry about chargebacks
Chargebacks are a great point - they’d love to shift that to the buyers
Transaction fees are paid by the customer, so fees may be lower from the merchant's perspective.
Bitcoin is bad but all of those were solved years ago by BitPay.
Don't understand your response - I didn't say these things were problems. It's more of a matter of what Amazon will decide to do. Even with Bitpay the questions would still stand.
Sorry, I thought you meant it's a nightmare for Amazon to figure out how to accept BTC. I agree that buying stuff with BTC is a nightmare which is why in reality virtually no one bothers (and the few people who do spend BTC just "forget" to do the paperwork).
What a silly episode.
First, the B Word conference also helped prop up the price of Bitcoin recently.
There was also a lot of bullish “on-chain” metrics lately - more new people holding Bitcoin longer, etc. a few on Bitcoin have been predicting a bit of a supply shock for the last couple weeks
Anyway… I also think it’s totally silly of an idea that Amazon would accept Bitcoin payments now. Tesla just backed out of doing so.
Very few in the US have much interest in using BTC outside as a store of value. Many other countries in South America and Africa will adopt Bitcoin for more legit reasons before big companies in the US hop on board IMO…those areas have way messier of monetary systems and serve as actual better use cases for Bitcoin
First, the B Word conference also helped prop up the price of Bitcoin recently.
There was also a lot of bullish “on-chain” metrics lately - more new people holding Bitcoin longer, etc. a few on Bitcoin have been predicting a bit of a supply shock for the last couple weeks
Anyway… I also think it’s totally silly of an idea that Amazon would accept Bitcoin payments now. Tesla just backed out of doing so.
Very few in the US have much interest in using BTC outside as a store of value. Many other countries in South America and Africa will adopt Bitcoin for more legit reasons before big companies in the US hop on board IMO…those areas have way messier of monetary systems and serve as actual better use cases for Bitcoin
tinfoil hat.
I think it was a false news plant to cover the pump and dump that happened today to cover other obligation by some big players.
I wouldn't be surprised. BTC rose from 32k to 38k in a matter of hours yesterday and it's already dumping. Only found out why hours ago, not sure if this news came before or after...
The pump was caused by $1B in liquidated short positions in less than 1 hour.
Source?
Dropping hard. Goes to show how you can be right yet still lose due to path dependency.
My tinfoil hat theory is this was some BS used to hide the fact there was other news propping up Bitcoin recently that is getting lost in headlines like this
Because of Tether melting down?
i think tesla wanted it up for their earnings call
Amazon denies report of considering accepting Bitcoin as payment.
What's funny is that this rumor started as a joke on Twitter, was picked up by some UK newspaper (iirc) and then spread through the media
To be fair, it really started due to the recent job opening for a digital currency and blockchain product lead at Amazon.
The "insider" info to a journo came after the fact.
Also: https://twitter.com/CryptoCobain/status/1419776583531892737
Also: https://twitter.com/CryptoCobain/status/1419776583531892737
Exactly! So funny that these news outlets are duped into believing these obviously made up stories.
I guess they probably don't care if it gets them a few extra clicks. Hopefully they will at least lose some credibility through this.
A joke or the usual hopeful bs that is so common with crypto?
I don't really see how this is a "rumor" nor a "joke"... The job posting is very real and is still on Amazon's website.
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1644513/digital-currency-and...
"Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead" on the "Payments Acceptance and Customer Experience" team... that doesn't seem like much of a joke to me.
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1644513/digital-currency-and...
"Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead" on the "Payments Acceptance and Customer Experience" team... that doesn't seem like much of a joke to me.
Not sure why your comment is flagged/dead, but that is indeed a legitimate job posting for something that sounds highly blockchain / crypto related. (Unless someone else controls the "amazon.jobs" domain.)
> "The Payments Acceptance & Experience team is seeking 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. "
That sounds like bitcoin.
> "The Payments Acceptance & Experience team is seeking 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. "
That sounds like bitcoin.
Sounds more like dogecoin.
How’s that for an exemplary pump and dump?
On the other hand they look into it: "We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon."
Could you translate this to plain English for people who do not understand Crypto Hopium?
Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. Did I do anything wrong? My interpretation of what their statement means is that they don't plan to allow bitcoin payments but they anyway try to do tests with it internally.
“This is good for Bitcoin”
That's just marketing speak for saying they don't want to say anything.
Buy the rumor. Sell the news.
Wasnt big news to begin with. Nobody uses bitcoin to pay for things. Well see what Twitter does though.
what type of currency goes up 20 percent on some unverified rumor from a newspaper no ones ever heard of
do I need an account to login?
As an active international company, Amazon is perfectly positioned to create its own virtual coin. They've created their own transportation service since what is available did not meet their needs. Likewise, the credit card companies take a big chunk of their profits and don't meet all their needs. It's only a matter of time before they go after them. I bet they're making plans to create it and use it for internal transactions aiming for it to be used by all the shoppers. Eventually it will be convertible to any currency and Bitcoin will be one of them. This is the power of being big and getting bigger.
This is a multi year project but it's coming.