Amazon Cryptocurrency Possibility has Much Higher Odds than Anyone Thinks: Amazon Coin in the Making?

The cryptocurrency community has always been thinking about important companies such as Amazon, Starbucks or eBay launching their own virtual currencies. And in the last days there is some speculation about Amazon building its own cryptocurrency.

Individuals all over the world are buying things online at all times. In the last ten years, online commerce grew at very high rates and companies such as Amazon benefited from it.

For example, in the United States, online shopping accounted for more than 10% of the retail sales for 2017. And indeed, Amazon controlled an important part of that market with $189.61 billion dollars in sales. Because of this, there is a growing speculation that the company is thinking about creating a cryptocurrency for its platform.

According to an opinion article published on Townhall, Amazon could eventually create its own cryptocurrency. In the past, the company has owned different domain names that are closely related to cryptocurrencies. Some of them are amazonbitcoin.com, amazoncryptocurrency.com, amazoncryptocurrencies.com and amazonethereum.com.

This shows that the company is somehow interested in virtual currencies. However, it is also possible to think that the company decided to pick up these website names so others would not be able to use them.

Another thing that the author of the article marks is that Amazon is always involved in the latest trends related to the newest technologies. This trend can be seen in the products that the company released to the market such as Echo or Kindle. Additionally, the company provides cloud-based services to other enterprises.

In the past, the company decided to launch Amazon Coins. Back in 2013 when these coins were released, Bitcoin was not what it has become today. These coins could be used by users to make purchases on the Fire TV, Fire tables and Android devices using the official Amazon app. Nonetheless, the coins were not cryptocurrencies. It was not possible to convert them into cash or exchange them for funds. They could be used to make purchases on the platform, working in a similar way as gift cards.

The company has also a very active economic ecosystem that would help with the adoption of this virtual currency. Amazon has a global community of users that has been involved with the platform in many different ways. The gigantic company has an audience of 300 million people and launching a cryptocurrency would have its positive points.

Amazon would also set up an exchange to trade cryptocurrencies, since it has been very profitable for other enterprises such as Coinbase or Binance. People could start trading their favourite cryptocurrencies and use the native virtual currency to purchase products.

However, there are some barriers that could make it difficult for Amazon to launch its virtual currency. The government of the United States has not yet created a federal clear regulation about virtual currencies. Each of the states is addressing this issue separately, something that is not positive for companies working in the space. Before creating a virtual currency, Amazon would definitely wait until the regulatory issues are solved and discussed, something that could take up to several years.

It might not be easy to create a virtual currency, but Amazon has everything what it needs in terms of money, technology and infrastructure to launch a successful virtual currency.