Business Standard

E-com giant Amazon may soon allow digital currency as payment mode

Amazon may allow users to pay in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin soon as the e-commerce giant is hiring a digital currency and blockchain product lead for its payments team.

Amazon has argued that terms agreed upon in its 2019 deal to pay US$192 million for a 49per cent stake in Future's gift voucher unit prevent its parent, Future Group, from selling its Future Retail Ltd business to Reliance. (Photo: Reuters)

Amazon (Photo: Reuters)

IANS San Francisco

Amazon may allow users to pay in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin soon as the e-commerce giant is hiring a digital currency and blockchain product lead for its payments team.

According to a latest job listing, Amazon's 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," the company posted.

The product lead will work closely with teams across Amazon, including AWS to develop the roadmap for the customer experience, technical strategy and capabilities as well as the launch strategy.

Amazon doesn't accept cryptocurrencies as payment yet.

A company spokesperson told Insider that it was "inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon."

 

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Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Cloud arm of Amazon, currently offers a managed blockchain service.

The new digital currency and blockchain product lead would "need to operate with a high level of autonomy and operate analytically, working backwards from data and customer insights to build new and innovative solutions to unsolved problems", the company further said.

Tech giant Apple posted a similar listing in May for a business development manager "working in or with alternative payment providers, such as digital wallets, BNPL, Fast Payments, cryptocurrency, and etc."

Tesla and Twitter are bullish on Bitcoin as the next payment mode.

The online world needs a global currency, and our focus is on Bitcoin because with this cryptocurrency, we can reach every single person on the planet, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has stressed.

Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the company is "most likely" going to resume taking Bitcoin payments after some due diligence on the improvements in the energy mix used to mine the cryptocurrency.
 

Bitcoin touches key level not seen since May


Bitcoin traded above a crucial technical level over the weekend for the first time since early May, after comments from Ark Investment Management LLC’s Cathie Wood and Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk. The largest cryptocurrency rose above its 50-day moving average on Saturday for the first time since May 12. It rose again Sunday, its fifth straight day of gains, to as high as $34,609.   Bloomberg

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Jul 25 2021 | 11:58 AM IST

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