After the BTC financing round – Amazon before Bitcoin introduction?
As early as 2014, Bitcoin was already under discussion as a payment method for Amazon. At that time the company could not get used to this idea. Almost six years later, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is again in contact with the crypto currency.
What spoke against the introduction of BTC at Amazon at that time? Decisive for the rejection of Bitcoin was probably the scalability as well as the market volatility risks of the crypto currency.
On November 19, Ham Serunjogi, co-founder and CEO of Chipper Cash, stated in a tweet that his FinTech start-up had successfully participated in a Series B financing round in which the venture capital company Bezos Expeditions had participated.
I am very pleased to announce our $30 million Series B round. However, I am particularly pleased that Ribbit Capital and Jeff Bezos are joining us on this journey as we continue to execute our vision for the Chipper Cash app.
The funding shows that Bezos seems to have a thing for BTC after all. This fact could now make many crypto engine supporters sit up and take notice. Amazon’s annual turnover in 2019 was about 280 billion US dollars. This makes the company one of the biggest players in the field of e-commerce. Introducing Bitcoin as an Amazon payment method would put the crypto currency in a completely new light for many people. Bitcoin would suddenly have arrived in all areas of society and would gain enormous acceptance.
Sean Rolland, Product Director at BitPay, told Decrypt about the current developments:
To use Bitcoin directly as a payment method, Amazon would have to develop processes and procedures to accept, hold and manage Bitcoin and thousands of other crypto-currencies.
According to Rolland, Amazon would have to assume market volatility risks associated with holding crypto currencies on its balance sheet or via a crypto exchange in exchange for fiat currency.
The introduction of Bitcoin by Amazon remains questionable. However, current events do not make this appear impossible.