Ask Amazon for Bitcoin Payments

[PalmerLaura]

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.

[cccarnation]

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.

[cccarnation]

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?

[illymoka]

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?

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.

[NotAtOld]

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.

[NotAtOld]

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.

[logger]

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.

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.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

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.

Overstock accepts bitcoin and they keep 10% of bitcoin related profits on their books

[tspacepilot]

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.

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?

[nwfella]

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.

Thought I had read something along similar lines somewhere myself.  Sounds as though Overstock CEO is pretty bullish on bitcoin in that case

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.

Overstock accepts bitcoin and they keep 10% of bitcoin related profits on their books

[SilenceDogreat]

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/

[SilenceDogreat]

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.

[christo]

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".

[zoro1]

If Amazon or other big seller wants to use and promote digital coins, it will offer discounts when payed with certain coins.
Then the big seller can even hold the coins and make larger profit than the discount since the big demand will increase the coin's fiat value.
win-win

[DannyElfman]

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.

They would need to implement some kind of escrow service if they were to do this. If a amazon merchant were to receive bitcoin but did not ship or shipped products that were inferior to what was advertised then the amazon reputation would be damaged

[transient858]

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.

They would need to implement some kind of escrow service if they were to do this. If a amazon merchant were to receive bitcoin but did not ship or shipped products that were inferior to what was advertised then the amazon reputation would be damaged

They already have escrow system in place for fiat.

Doing escrow on bitcoin is a little harder as the price and go up and down in matter of minute, and retail profit is razor thin to withstand this kind of price movement.

[coincollector]

I think in the long, long run Amazon may have some type of a payment system in the works. It may seemed far fetched now but eventually their market share is going to plateau and Ebay may be the final frontier. I could even see an acquisition...again in the far distant future.

[DannyElfman]

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.

They would need to implement some kind of escrow service if they were to do this. If a amazon merchant were to receive bitcoin but did not ship or shipped products that were inferior to what was advertised then the amazon reputation would be damaged

They already have escrow system in place for fiat.

Doing escrow on bitcoin is a little harder as the price and go up and down in matter of minute, and retail profit is razor thin to withstand this kind of price movement.

The system they have in place makes it so they can take away funds from future sales, but if future sales do not exceed the amount in dispute then amazon can recover the funds that were paid

[mercistheman]

Not seeing a big benefit in Amazon coming on board this early... could be a dump truck... sell n dump does not help raise btc value...
We need to focus on increasing awareness on purchase value for long term investment.

[Djo]

it`s just a matter of time before bitcoin becomes global. Impossible to resist.
Can`t escape reality.