London-based newspaper CITY A.M. surprisingly announced on Monday, July 26 that e-commerce giant Amazon would be very close to accepting Bitcoin payments before the end of the year while also working to launch its own token next year.
According to its source, the acceptance of Bitcoin was the first step in a much deeper plan to integrate the platform with the crypto ecosystem, planning to also accept Ethereum, Cardano and Bitcoin Cash at a later date.
All this would be being studied and worked on since 2019, so it would be "quite easy to implement" for the company.
This news took off with a bang and may, together with the virtual conference between Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter), have been responsible for the continued bullish rally that allowed Bitcoin to reach the price of US$40,000, something that had not happened since June 15 this year.
However, the rumor has been denied by the company itself, so the concrete possibilities of being able to use Bitcoin as a means of payment on this platform, at least this year, do not seem to be very high.
In any case, what is concrete - and to a large extent was the driving force behind the whole thing - is the fact that Amazon published a job advertisement seeking experts in "Blockchain, distributed ledger technology, central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrencies" to "be able to develop and plan a roadmap and strategy for future products".
This search confirms that Amazon does have cryptocurrencies on its radar and is likely looking at their potential as effective means of payment. While this may not go ahead before the end of the year, it may be a reality in the not so distant future, we know how fast things change when it comes to crypto.
Sources:
https://www.cityam.com/amazon-definitely-lining-up-bitcoin-payments-and-token-confirms-insider/
https://www.amazon.jobs/es/search?base_query=Blockchain&loc_query=
