Amazon could offer to accept Bitcoin for merchants who want to accept Bitcoin. The Amazon payment gateway could accept Bitcoin without Amazon the company having to hold Bitcoin.
But if they did hold some the easiest way to get rid of some would be to offer to pay their affiliates in Bitcoin. (If you refer someone to buy on Amazon, they will give you a cut).
Many affiliates don't even earn enough to justify payout in dollars and are just credited to their Amazon account.
Amazon credit, while it's nice, is obviously considered to be worth less than a Bitcoin for at least some of their "associates".
Topic: Ask Amazon for Bitcoin Payments - page 7. (Read 11928 times)
Amazon hasn't overlooked Bitcoin. I asked a friend who works there as a brand specialist about this in April.
His response was not overwhelmingly positive, but he did say it's something they're still actively evaluating.
I believe it's the SXSW interview with Fred Ehrsam where he mentions companies that have extremely low margins...
and how there's huge incentive for those firms to accept Bitcoin - Amazon would certainly fall under that category.
At the same time, Amazon has a market cap of ~150b... Bitcoin has a market cap of <10b.
( Overstock's market cap is a couple orders of magnitude lower than Amazon's, at 380m. )
(( Although I'm a huge fan of what Patrick Byrne has been doing for the community ))
If adoption continues at a strong pace, I think Amazon would be crazy not to accept Bitcoin in the future.
It's probably a little too early now though, as others have said.
His response was not overwhelmingly positive, but he did say it's something they're still actively evaluating.
I believe it's the SXSW interview with Fred Ehrsam where he mentions companies that have extremely low margins...
and how there's huge incentive for those firms to accept Bitcoin - Amazon would certainly fall under that category.
At the same time, Amazon has a market cap of ~150b... Bitcoin has a market cap of <10b.
( Overstock's market cap is a couple orders of magnitude lower than Amazon's, at 380m. )
(( Although I'm a huge fan of what Patrick Byrne has been doing for the community ))
If adoption continues at a strong pace, I think Amazon would be crazy not to accept Bitcoin in the future.
It's probably a little too early now though, as others have said.
Overstock accepts bitcoin and they keep 10% of bitcoin related profits on their books
Really, 10%? That's a pretty big position for a retail company who's presumably not into currency speculation. Obviously as a member of the bitcoin community, I hope they're making the right move. Still it's a surprise. Do you happen to have a link to an articule dicussing them keeping 10% of their bitcoins in bitcoins?
Here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24kbc0/im_patrick_byrne_a_profreedom_supporter_of/
No no no no - too big, too soon.
You're not thinking clearly. I'm very bearish about the future of bitcoin, but this would be a really good thing for bitcoin. Amazon isn't just a giant online marketplace, it also has huge cloud resources and enough IT horsepower to render needing dozens of other exchanges pretty moot.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
No no no no - too big, too soon.
You're not thinking clearly. I'm very bearish about the future of bitcoin, but this would be a really good thing for bitcoin. Amazon isn't just a giant online marketplace, it also has huge cloud resources and enough IT horsepower to render needing dozens of other exchanges pretty moot.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
Really, 10%? That's a pretty big position for a retail company who's presumably not into currency speculation. Obviously as a member of the bitcoin community, I hope they're making the right move. Still it's a surprise. Do you happen to have a link to an articule dicussing them keeping 10% of their bitcoins in bitcoins?
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No no no no - too big, too soon.
You're not thinking clearly. I'm very bearish about the future of bitcoin, but this would be a really good thing for bitcoin. Amazon isn't just a giant online marketplace, it also has huge cloud resources and enough IT horsepower to render needing dozens of other exchanges pretty moot.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
They'd convert most of them to cash, which is what everybody else in the world is doing anyway and use them to avoid processing fees to Visa and Mastercard.
The current bitoin market by in large isn't "cycling money" either, it's all speculation. If people were using it mostly for goods and services it wouldn't be fluctuating in price like a penny stock.
The current bitoin market by in large isn't "cycling money" either, it's all speculation. If people were using it mostly for goods and services it wouldn't be fluctuating in price like a penny stock.
Which would cause Bitcoin to become worthless. A site like Amazon wouldn't throttle Bitcoin expenditure. It is exactly why Amazon won't accept Bitcoin for a long, long time. Once many more small sites start accepting Bitcoin, then we can think about the big dogs.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
The current bitoin market by in large isn't "cycling money" either, it's all speculation. If people were using it mostly for goods and services it wouldn't be fluctuating in price like a penny stock.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
They'd convert most of them to cash, which is what everybody else in the world is doing anyway and use them to avoid processing fees to Visa and Mastercard.
By providing the exchange, AND holding a good deal of the currency -- they could buy up 40% of the bitcoins in existence easily right now -- they could actually make the market and hold prices more stable just by selling their own reserves during runs and buying during crashes.
Yes, they already have Amazon coin, but why not take advantage of the proven protocol of bitcoin, and the widespread holdings of / interest in the currency?
Yes, they already have Amazon coin, but why not take advantage of the proven protocol of bitcoin, and the widespread holdings of / interest in the currency?
I agree with the second part of your post, and the first part, while it does provide increased stability and may increase the adoption of bitcoin severely, I feel it goes against bitcoin having centralization. Though, I am on the fence about that. Stability would most certainly be extremely welcome right now.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
Amazon can provide a world of good to bitcoin, but chances are that right now, they won't do it since it is too risky for them to do so.
Yes, they already have Amazon coin, but why not take advantage of the proven protocol of bitcoin, and the widespread holdings of / interest in the currency?
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
They would need to use something like bitpay, but since this is amazon we are talking about, it would probably make more sense for them to roll out such a service themselves. They might even make an exchange of sorts meant only for amazon <->bitcoin users to get around relying on MTgox's recent horror shows. This would be a very expensive investment in a currency that so far has been very unstable.
By providing the exchange, AND holding a good deal of the currency -- they could buy up 40% of the bitcoins in existence easily right now -- they could actually make the market and hold prices more stable just by selling their own reserves during runs and buying during crashes.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
Amazon can provide a world of good to bitcoin, but chances are that right now, they won't do it since it is too risky for them to do so.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
They would need to use something like bitpay, but since this is amazon we are talking about, it would probably make more sense for them to roll out such a service themselves. They might even make an exchange of sorts meant only for amazon <->bitcoin users to get around relying on MTgox's recent horror shows. This would be a very expensive investment in a currency that so far has been very unstable.
No no no no - too big, too soon.
You're not thinking clearly. I'm very bearish about the future of bitcoin, but this would be a really good thing for bitcoin. Amazon isn't just a giant online marketplace, it also has huge cloud resources and enough IT horsepower to render needing dozens of other exchanges pretty moot.
What exactly would Amazon do with the Bitcoins? They can't pay their employees or maintain their servers with it. Amazon would be the only major store taking Bitcoins. They would become bloated and Bitcoin would be worthless. Rick is right, it is too big and too soon. Economies need to cycle money and Amazon wouldn't have anywhere to put the Bitcoins after they have been paid.
No no no no - too big, too soon.
You're not thinking clearly. I'm very bearish about the future of bitcoin, but this would be a really good thing for bitcoin. Amazon isn't just a giant online marketplace, it also has huge cloud resources and enough IT horsepower to render needing dozens of other exchanges pretty moot.
No no no no - too big, too soon. When we have over 100 active and trusted exchanges, maybe. When Bitcoin's average transaction volume tops 1Billion USD daily, maybe. When the blocksize limit allows for more than 7 transactions a second, then we can consider petitioning. Until then, we're still just tiny fish - and we don't swim in the tank with the whales.
The BTC/USD market would need to have more liquidity to absorb the amounts Amazons would generate. Although, if it were to adopt it then lots of people would be buying BTC and more speculators lubricating the market I guess.
No no no no - too big, too soon. When we have over 100 active and trusted exchanges, maybe. When Bitcoin's average transaction volume tops 1Billion USD daily, maybe. When the blocksize limit allows for more than 7 transactions a second, then we can consider petitioning. Until then, we're still just tiny fish - and we don't swim in the tank with the whales.
i will definitely ask for payment in BTC
In the meantime, use Gyft to purchase at Amazon. If sales numbers are high enough, Amazon might take notice and decide to accept bitcoins directly, just to cut out the middlemen.
Or, if you want to just pay the item cost and not have to round up to the nearest $10, use snapCard.
Snapcard has a 2% surcharge. Gyft actually pays me 3% back on every purchase. There's nothing better out there.
Gyft is great for specific stores, if you don't mind having to buy in the exact increments of those stores' smallest giftcard values. Frequently, I don't mind that. Sometimes I do. More often, I want to shop somewhere not currently available through Gyft.
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