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The first thing that came to mind when hearing they were looking for a blockchain lead was they were hiring for an AWS service. Why would a company that operate

The first thing that came to mind when hearing they were looking for a blockchain lead was they were hiring for an AWS service. Why would a company that operates famously on thin margins (not the AWS side of things) accept a "currency" that could take a 7% price swing in a day.

xwdv 5y ago
For speculation.
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- stingraycharles 5y ago
  Wouldn’t they be able to do that without integrating Bitcoin as a payment gateway?
  - anyfoo 5y ago
    Yeah. If they were interested in speculating using Bitcoin, they would just buy Bitcoin, instead of essentially letting their end customers decide, wouldn't they?
    - hhmc 5y ago
      Unless you pull the tesla trick of accepting payment in BTC but reserving the right to refund in either BTC or USD -- granting yourself a soft option on BTCUSD. Altough surely not worth the effort unless you have a lot of refund flow.
bouncycastle 5y ago
you know you can do much more with blockchain tech than just payments? My hunch is that they could be building an NFT marketplace. It makes sense.
- mtalantikite 5y ago
  If they're getting into NFT it's to sell shovels to the speculators.
  - bouncycastle 5y ago
    If you think about it, then this fits Amazons's existing business exactly: To provide a marketplace for people who buy things at cost prices and then sell them for a higher price.
    - davidcbc 5y ago
      If they really want to lean into the reputation they are getting for being a platform for counterfeits and scams then NFTs are the next logical step
      - bouncycastle 5y ago
        counterfeits on Amazon? Are you kidding me? sarcastic smile Seriously though, it's easy to verify if a NFT is genuine - one of the features of Blockchain tech.
        jazzyjackson 5y ago
        I don’t know what you mean by genuine, non-counterfeit? You can check that a token exists on chain, but that tells you nothing about whether the person who issued the token owns the copyright to the work. Ie, no guarantees of authenticity.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  Does it really make sense? NFTs have not been proven to be anything except hype (really well selling hype for a while, but nothing but hype nonetheless).
  - smegger001 5y ago
throwslackforce 5y ago
If more than 51% of BTC mining eventually takes place on machines rented from AWS, could Bezos flip a switch and take control of the blockchain (e.g. by shutting down the miners running on the AWS hardware, and rebooting it all with miners he controls?)
- everfree 5y ago
  AWS does not rent out bitcoin mining rigs and really has no incentive to. To mine at a profit requires expensive, extremely specialized single-purpose hardware that can only be used for bitcoin mining and can't be re-used for anything else.
- mtalantikite 5y ago
  I doubt they're getting into mining, their AWS product is in hosted ledgers and things like that: https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/ https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/
- graeme 5y ago
  Not without destroying trust in AWS
  - mtalantikite 5y ago
    Yeah, the idea that Jeff Bezos is going to pull an exit scam on the entire bitcoin ecosystem is ridiculous. He already has all the money.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  51% miners have limited control over blockchain. They can censor blockchain by not allowing some transactions (and forking whenever other miner tries to add those transactons). They can undo some transactions by making a fork before that transaction has happened and eventually forcing the world to switch to their chain. All those cases are highly visible. I don't know what will happen if someone will attempt to force-fork blockchain. But I highly doubt that 51% miners could monetize that power. Another point: bitcoin miners are using ASICs, not GPU or CPU. Those ASICs are useless bricks outside of bitcoin mining. If bitcoin miners will collapse bitcoin, they'll lose their ASICs investments. AWS can sell their CPUs to anyone, but mining bitcoin on their CPUs is pointless. To mine bitcoin, you need to buy or build ASICs. And you need bitcoin to stay afloat to return investments from those ASICs. The only danger is if some actor have lot of money (e.g. US government) and want to kill bitcoin. They can rent some fabs, build lots of ASICs and wreak havoc. They'll spend a lot of money, but probably they'll achieve that goal.
neuronexmachina 5y ago
AWS's QLDB and Managed Blockchain have been in GA since 2019: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-managed-blockchain-create-manage-scalable-blockchain-networks/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-managed-blockcha...
- judge2020 5y ago
  I don't see how that matters in the sense of Amazon coming close to accepting another form of payment. Just because they have a team that specializes in managing hosted merkle trees doesn't mean they finally closed the gap preventing them from sending and receiving BTC for physical products.
orf 5y ago
Amazon accepts a lot of currencies. Is BC the only one that swings?
- lmm 5y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it's significantly more volatile than any currency that Amazon accepts.
bloheropod2 5y ago
You can still see the job posting on Amazon's website : https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1644513/digital-currency-and-blockchain-product-lead https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1644513/digital-currency-and... It says on the posting that its for the "Payments Acceptance and Customer Experience" team, and if you go to that team's job page: "Amazon Payment Acceptance & Customer Experience team’s mission is to launch products and experiences for any customer that lives in a country to which Amazon ships enabling them shop on Amazon and pay, or get paid, the way they want to." That doesn't sound like an AWS service/team to me.
dcolkitt 5y ago
You just plug the payment backend into the mega deep liquidity pools in DeFi and hedge out in real-time. It’s actually significantly easier than dealing with foreign currency in the traditional banking system.
- smt88 5y ago
  Last I checked, all DeFi activity could be measured in billions of USD. That's not "mega deep". It's barely a blip in the global financial system. It's not even enough for a few months of Amazon revenue.
yourabstraction 5y ago
I think the job posting was listed as being in the payments division though.

xwdv 5y ago

For speculation.

deleted 5y ago
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deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stingraycharles 5y ago
Wouldn’t they be able to do that without integrating Bitcoin as a payment gateway?
- anyfoo 5y ago
  Yeah. If they were interested in speculating using Bitcoin, they would just buy Bitcoin, instead of essentially letting their end customers decide, wouldn't they?
  - hhmc 5y ago
    Unless you pull the tesla trick of accepting payment in BTC but reserving the right to refund in either BTC or USD -- granting yourself a soft option on BTCUSD. Altough surely not worth the effort unless you have a lot of refund flow.

bouncycastle 5y ago

you know you can do much more with blockchain tech than just payments? My hunch is that they could be building an NFT marketplace. It makes sense.

mtalantikite 5y ago
If they're getting into NFT it's to sell shovels to the speculators.
- bouncycastle 5y ago
  If you think about it, then this fits Amazons's existing business exactly: To provide a marketplace for people who buy things at cost prices and then sell them for a higher price.
  - davidcbc 5y ago
    If they really want to lean into the reputation they are getting for being a platform for counterfeits and scams then NFTs are the next logical step
    - bouncycastle 5y ago
      counterfeits on Amazon? Are you kidding me? sarcastic smile Seriously though, it's easy to verify if a NFT is genuine - one of the features of Blockchain tech.
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
        I don’t know what you mean by genuine, non-counterfeit? You can check that a token exists on chain, but that tells you nothing about whether the person who issued the token owns the copyright to the work. Ie, no guarantees of authenticity.
SahAssar 5y ago
Does it really make sense? NFTs have not been proven to be anything except hype (really well selling hype for a while, but nothing but hype nonetheless).
- smegger001 5y ago

throwslackforce 5y ago

If more than 51% of BTC mining eventually takes place on machines rented from AWS, could Bezos flip a switch and take control of the blockchain (e.g. by shutting down the miners running on the AWS hardware, and rebooting it all with miners he controls?)

everfree 5y ago
AWS does not rent out bitcoin mining rigs and really has no incentive to. To mine at a profit requires expensive, extremely specialized single-purpose hardware that can only be used for bitcoin mining and can't be re-used for anything else.
mtalantikite 5y ago
I doubt they're getting into mining, their AWS product is in hosted ledgers and things like that: https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/ https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/
graeme 5y ago
Not without destroying trust in AWS
- mtalantikite 5y ago
  Yeah, the idea that Jeff Bezos is going to pull an exit scam on the entire bitcoin ecosystem is ridiculous. He already has all the money.
vbezhenar 5y ago
51% miners have limited control over blockchain. They can censor blockchain by not allowing some transactions (and forking whenever other miner tries to add those transactons). They can undo some transactions by making a fork before that transaction has happened and eventually forcing the world to switch to their chain. All those cases are highly visible. I don't know what will happen if someone will attempt to force-fork blockchain. But I highly doubt that 51% miners could monetize that power. Another point: bitcoin miners are using ASICs, not GPU or CPU. Those ASICs are useless bricks outside of bitcoin mining. If bitcoin miners will collapse bitcoin, they'll lose their ASICs investments. AWS can sell their CPUs to anyone, but mining bitcoin on their CPUs is pointless. To mine bitcoin, you need to buy or build ASICs. And you need bitcoin to stay afloat to return investments from those ASICs. The only danger is if some actor have lot of money (e.g. US government) and want to kill bitcoin. They can rent some fabs, build lots of ASICs and wreak havoc. They'll spend a lot of money, but probably they'll achieve that goal.

neuronexmachina 5y ago

AWS's QLDB and Managed Blockchain have been in GA since 2019: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-managed-blockchain-create-manage-scalable-blockchain-networks/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-managed-blockcha...

judge2020 5y ago
I don't see how that matters in the sense of Amazon coming close to accepting another form of payment. Just because they have a team that specializes in managing hosted merkle trees doesn't mean they finally closed the gap preventing them from sending and receiving BTC for physical products.

orf 5y ago

Amazon accepts a lot of currencies. Is BC the only one that swings?

lmm 5y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it's significantly more volatile than any currency that Amazon accepts.

bloheropod2 5y ago

You can still see the job posting on Amazon's website : https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1644513/digital-currency-and-blockchain-product-lead https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1644513/digital-currency-and... It says on the posting that its for the "Payments Acceptance and Customer Experience" team, and if you go to that team's job page: "Amazon Payment Acceptance & Customer Experience team’s mission is to launch products and experiences for any customer that lives in a country to which Amazon ships enabling them shop on Amazon and pay, or get paid, the way they want to." That doesn't sound like an AWS service/team to me.

dcolkitt 5y ago

You just plug the payment backend into the mega deep liquidity pools in DeFi and hedge out in real-time. It’s actually significantly easier than dealing with foreign currency in the traditional banking system.

smt88 5y ago
Last I checked, all DeFi activity could be measured in billions of USD. That's not "mega deep". It's barely a blip in the global financial system. It's not even enough for a few months of Amazon revenue.

yourabstraction 5y ago

I think the job posting was listed as being in the payments division though.