The Bitcoin sphere is currently going nuts over the idea that Amazon will start accepting Bitcoin next month! Sure thing! IT’S HAPPENING!
This came from a post on a blog called Squawker, which turns out to be the sort of blog that has a front-page header for “culture wars” and thinks that “cultural Marxism” is a thing. Squawker sourced this remarkable claim from an email newsletter called the James Altucher Report, which mostly advocates startup penny stocks, although it’s now heavily advocating cryptos (archive), a topic Altucher has a lot of interest in.
Altucher thinks (archive) that Amazon will start accepting Bitcoin because eBay has “expressed interest” in accepting Bitcoin, although I can find no evidence of this, and because Patrick Byrne of Overstock says eBay’s gotta accept Bitcoin because Overstock does (0.15% of sales) — despite Overstock having lost money consistently over the past several years on cryptos, which they’re only into at all because Byrne is a Bitcoin fan. That’s the whole basis of the rumour.
I will be frankly amazed if Amazon start accepting bitcoins as of (per Altucher) their next earnings call on 26 October, and if this occurs I will proclaim Altucher a genius.
Update, 1 November: Altucher is pretty smart, but he missed his trick on this one. No cryptocurrency announcement from Amazon.
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Who cares if Amazon accept Bitcoin? Only a fanatic would use it there and give up the rebates available for other purchase methods, such as credit cards.
I think you’re not understanding how good news!! for Bitcoin works. Basically, it’s Bitcoin true believers still looking for legitimisation in the wider world, in the hope that their holding will go up without them having to spend it. See “Non-illegal goods and services” in chapter 7 of the book.
Or I guess if someone obtained Bitcoin as a means of violating laws, one could spend it at Amazon without having to go through an exchange that follows KYC and AML rules.