Amazon could accept cryptocurrency payments in the future, job listing suggests

Update: Amazon has issued a statement denying reports that the e-commerce giant plans to accept cryptocurrency. However, the company is interested in the crypto space.

Recently, Tesla said that it would start accepting Bitcoin payments, soon, although it didn’t explicitly state when. That caused the Bitcoin price to surge past the USD 32,000 mark. Now, Amazon could follow suit soon, based on a recent job posting spotted online. The retail giant is looking for “an experienced product leader to develop Amazon’s Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap.” This suggests that the company is working on baking Bitcoin (and potentially other cryptocurrencies) into its payment systems, City AM reported. You can find out more about the position on Amazon’s official job portal. There’s mention of ‘Amazon’s Digital Currency’, too, so Amazon could possibly be working on its own crypto. 

Also read: Bitcoin price soars above USD 32,000 following Elon Musk’s speech

Thankfully, Amazon has AWS (Amazon Web Services) by its side, so the infrastructure part should be well taken care of. However, integrating cryptocurrency payments into your system can get quite tricky, given that Bitcoin transactions take an average of ten minutes to complete. To make matters worse, that number has a tendency to go up regularly. Back in 2017, many users had to wait for hours, sometimes even days, to get their Bitcoin. 

Besides, there is a boatload of other cryptocurrencies out there other than Bitcoin, although Amazon is unlikely to accept them all. Even if it were to accept the biggies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, the additional computing cost will be quite significant. Nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to see how Amazon goes about it.

Unlike Tesla, which sells a handful of cars a year, Amazon has to blaze through billions, if not trillions of transactions annually. Amazon will obviously soak test its cryptocurrency payment portal in a handful of markets before rolling it out en masse. Don’t expect to spend your crypto on Amazon anytime soon and the best way forward is to HOLD.