Is Amazon Preparing To Launch Its Own Crypto Asset? XRP Architect Analyzes Odds That Retail Giant Will Enter the Space

7 January 2021

in XRP

Reading Time: 2 mins read

Ripple executive David Schwartz is analyzing the prospects of an Amazon-minted crypto asset.

Speculation on Amazon’s potential interest in entering the industry has been a hot topic in crypto circles for years, fueled by the company’s patent filings and domain purchases.

In a new post on Quora, the chief technology officer at Ripple says he doubts the online retail giant will launch its own digital asset for its 200 million users anytime soon. Schwartz cites the difficulty in converting crypto assets to other currencies as the main factor that will keep Amazon out of the crypto movement.

“…that’s not a particularly convenient way to make a currency.

Imagine if you had one currency that you were paid in, one currency that you had to pay taxes in, one currency that you used to pay your rent, one currency that you used to buy groceries, and so on. That would be a confusing mess. Not only would you incur lots of pointless fees converting between currencies, but you wouldn’t know what fraction of your salary you needed to pay your rent because the currencies could change value relative to each other.”

Back in 2017, Amazon bought three crypto-related domains – amazoncryptocurrency.com, amazonethereum.com and amazoncryptocurrencies.com – fueling talk of the company’s potential interest in the space.

Amazon also has several blockchain patents, at least one of which is geared towards tracking items over time across the supply chain.

Back in late 2019 predictive analytics company Cindicator asked a group of analysts which company was most likely to launch a cryptocurrency to compete with Facebook’s Libra, now Diem, and 22.62% of respondents said they believed Amazon would be next.

However, at the time the study was published, Amazon Pay vice president Patrick Gauthier squashed rumors that the company would launch a cryptocurrency anytime soon, citing the speculative nature of the market.

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