Amazon has been making the rounds lately with its bitcoin and crypto payments plans. The company's latest move is further fuelling the speculation. According to a job posted on the company's website, the e-commerce giant is looking for a Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead.
Amazon wants someone with the technical know-how to "innovate within the payments and financial system" and be part of their Payments Acceptance & Experience Team. In conjunction with other departments, the crypto Product Lead would utilize their expertise in Bitcoin, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger technology, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to develop a strategy and vision.
Thus, Amazon would gain "leadership buy-in" for these capabilities. The job post reference services, customer experience, and a complete technical strategy to support the project.
According to the news website City A.M., an "insider" has confirmed that Amazon is "definitely" looking to launch Bitcoin and crypto payments by the end of the current year. In addition, the e-commerce giant could launch its token by 2022. The insider told the A.M. that Amazon has a plan beyond their Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead job. The source said:
This isn’t just going through the motions to set up cryptocurrency payment solutions at some point in the future – this is a full-on, well-discussed, integral part of the future mechanism of how Amazon will work.
The insider also revealed that the company's executive chairman and founder, Jeff Bezos, also like the idea and has given his approval for the project. The project is set to kick off with Bitcoin but will not be limited to it. Amazon executives are apparently "keen" to explore payments with other cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market cap. This second phase would be launch once they had "established a fast and secure method of" crypto payments.
Ethereum, Cardano and Bitcoin Cash will be next in line before they bring about eight of the most popular cryptocurrencies online. It won’t take long because the plans are already there, and they have been working on them since 2019.
A final stage will involve the creation and launch of an Amazon native token. The company has been allegedly experimenting with cryptocurrencies to pay for goods for around a year and founds feasibly to head towards “tokenization”.
This then becomes a multi-level infrastructure where you can pay for goods and services or earn tokens in a loyalty scheme. There’s little more to it, for now, but you can guarantee the Bitcoin plan will be monitored closely as opportunities with Amazon’s own version of a crypto will be explored.
Amazon has not made an official statement on its supposed crypto project. Thus, anything remains as a rumor and speculation until official confirmation and should be taken with caution.