![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPYNARrXkad2LLCnhgianuX9Zd9YLtnjWaCpNUSpYiq3z/image.png)

More than any other company, Amazon is ideally placed to release their own crypto currency. Yes, we have all heard it before and it still has not happened yet. But that is no reason not to speculate on something that could wipe out the financial markets in one stroke!

We have all heard these reasons before as to why Amazon will not indulge us in this regard:
1.	There is a lot of regulatory uncertainty across the world regarding cryptocurrencies and it is perfectly justified to be careful
2.	Cryptocurrency does not make great economic sense it is decentralized and Amazon would not be able to make a profit on it
3.	Most of the top management at Amazon are skeptical regarding the future of cryptocurrency (if it were true, it would be no different in every other company which relies on fiat currency)
4.	The fact that Amazon accepts local currencies across the world means that there is no incentive to create a cryptocurrency unless the local government endorses it
5.	There is no powerful incentive since Amazon is better served by being independent of the currency which allows it to play nice with all countries/governments
6.	Amazon may get isolated because of currency conversion issues which may drastically affect customer perception
7.	Tax issues are not clear and without clear visibility it does not make sense for Amazon at all
8.	It would give an unfair leverage to Amazon over its suppliers since it controls the supply chain thus effectively controlling the end sale price
9.	Why take the risk of offering a new crypto coin when you can just setup your own exchange and take all coins

Many objections to the idea are pedantic if you compare it to the speed at which the crypto markets are moving.  But some are extremely valid (points 8 and 7) and will impact any company that delves deeper into offering cryptocurrencies. But these risks can be mitigated because no country will ignore the obvious advantages of digital currency given that it saves them enormous printing costs, dealing with counterfeit notes and managing ATMs.

Let us kick point 8 a little further down the road and I promise that we will come back and address it.

Point 9 is also worth considering. What happens if Amazon sets up a crypto exchange? It will immediately make crypto currency spending mainstream. Given its vast customer base, it will start adding increased traffic by just giving users a different place to trade their coins. Amazon will go to town marketing itself as the only cryptocurrency exchange that can instantly cash out to an asset purchase which will appear on your doorstep 24 hours later! Consider the Amazon cash back advertisement below

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQAibgegZPteHJ4te7C2t2gQiopyFejEFohve7TApn52w/image.png)

I know that you know that there is a fixed cap on the quantity of cryptocurrencies but you get the general idea right? But there is a drawback here which should concern Amazon and that is a matter of trust. There is a powerful reason why a foreign exchange service does not also offer to sell you a phone as well. People will always suspect (and rightly so) that you are pepping up your profits on a particular product vis-a-vis the exchange rate. * In other words you are giving me a chocolate bar worth 20 cents even though you owed me change for a dollar!*

So having dispensed with the easy objections and conveniently ignoring the tough ones, we shall enunciate why it makes great sense for Amazon to host their own cryptocoin.

### Dominate most P2P digital currencies (eventually)
At the end of the day Amazon has made a big enough bet that most shopping will be online in the future. Ultimately every cryptocurrency holder just wants to be able to spend it and what better place than Amazon. Amazon will give you instant convertibility and given the serious conversion issues that plague the industry today, this would be a welcome offering. This would entice people to hold Amazon currency compared to say LiteCoin. 

### It would take over the cryptowallet space
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmf5u61suLKxFArtmM9J7W37jPSnHGVNZdkCvtx57mKTbJ/image.png)

Amazon being in a position of trust becomes the de-facto digital wallet provider. It makes perfect sense that they would ensure that it would host other currencies as well. The digital wallet space is currently not seen as a big enough opportunity because there is no difference between different wallets today. But wallet holders could get incentives directly baked in which means that they could see currency deposits in their wallet based on retail offers. You could throw away your credit cards (if not done already). Yes, this will be a big deal

### Get a bigger share of the transaction pie
Since there is a single coin being traded the net value of an asset sold on the platform could be completely rationalized without much visibility to the customer. Okay, this is not favorable to the end consumer but it is already happening. It does however give Amazon awesome opportunity to squeeze the supplier.

### Become the retail banker
Today the EMI game is played by third party providers on Amazon and it indirectly ends up giving them a percentage of the profits for every such purchase. There is no incentive for Amazon to start working with recovery agents which would only impact their bottom line. But if you don’t have to move a muscle to recover and can implement a smart contract to automatically withdraw from the wallet with interest then you have just become a bank with a 100 million customers. Chew on that for effect!

### Own the payment gateway
This is a corollary of the Amazon wallet and goes like this “pay your college tuition through Amazon coins. Pay your car dealer, your neighborhood pharmacy or for the movies”. Unlike other blockchains, Amazon can drag in every small business out there to be a part of their network because every single retailer or small business is a consumer. Charging a simple transaction fee is enough for Amazon to skim tens of billions (or possibly more) out of such a large and captive audience. Clearly the existing base of consumer will allow it to catch and surpass other gateways reasonably quickly

Now let us get back to the point we made earlier about Amazon having unfair leverage with it suppliers. Well I have bad news for you if you are one. This is not going to change anytime soon. Given the volume that it drives and the risk mitigation it does, the supplier is at a disadvantage. It is only going to get worse with a cryptocurrency integrated system controlled by Amazon. But look on the bright side! Your payments will come through quicker and your returns can be handled smoother. In fact the suppliers would not need to be apprehensive about unfair downgrades since the blockchain will make this transparent

So let us look forward to a world where the Amazon Coin AMC being traded on your nearest crypto exchange and many of us hold AmazeWallets. If Jeff Bezos came out tomorrow and announced it we certainly will not be astonished. Amazon with its preeminent positioning has the power to take every other shopping behemoth to the cleaners.  

### As Kennedy once said “Like it or not, we live in interesting times”.