Amazon registers three digital currency domains- rumours of Bitcoin adoption spread
Amazon registers three digital currency domains- rumours of Bitcoin adoption spread
During the last couple of months, web-giant Amazon has been the centre of numerous rumours stating that the company was preparing to launch bitcoin-based payments for their products and services. While Amazon did not confirm nor deny these rumours, the company just registered three digital currency-related domains.
Following Bitcoin’s surge to almost $7,000 and the CME announcement that they will soon offer Bitcoin futures, Amazon announced the purchase of Amazoncryptocurrencies.com, Amazonethereum.com and Amazoncryptocurrency.com. While none of the sites are reachable at this time, many consider this registration as a confirmation of the rumours.
The move comes only a week after the co-founder of Ethereum commented that ‘we’ve not seen that much’ from Amazon in terms of blockchain research or digital currency acceptance preparation.
Regardless of the domain registrations, the tech giant made no statement that would confirm their move onto cryptocurrency market. Not only this, but one month ago, the Payment VP of Amazon, Patrick Gauthier, went ahead and clarified that Amazon had no plans of accepting digital currency-based payments due to the lack of demand.
This move leads people to speculate what Amazon is preparing. Some believe that the company isn’t preparing to accept digital currencies as a method of payment, but rather to offer crypto-related services. This would be a departure from Amazon’s business model, with the rumours being a bit far-fetched in this regard.
On the other hand, others believe that Amazon is simply protecting its brand by registering different domains of interested containing the brand name. This move would stop third parties from creating websites under the Amazon brand, and hence offer services. This would make sense, as Amazon has a history of doing this. In fact, back in 2014, Amazon purchased the AmazonBitcoin.com domain, which now simply redirects users to the homepage of the website.
Amazon actively offers users the possibility to pay via their very own crypto-token, the Amazon Coin, which was launched back in 2013. It remains debatable whether Amazon is truly planning to offer a digital currency-related service anytime soon apart from the token which hasn’t amassed much popularity yet.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what are your thoughts on the rumours pertaining to the relationship between Amazon and digital currencies? Will the tech giant start accepting digital currencies as a payment method, or offer crypto-services? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.