New York (AFP)
Amazon on Monday denied a press report announcing that the platform would accept bitcoin payments by the end of the year, but was nevertheless interested in cryptocurrencies, an attraction that has boosted prices in this market.
The City AM site had published, on the night of Sunday to Monday, an article announcing the next acceptance of bitcoin payments, but also the creation of a cryptocurrency specific to Amazon in 2022, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Asked by AFP, a spokeswoman for Amazon assured that the information was "invented".
However, she confirmed "the interest (of the group) for this sector".
"We remain focused on exploring what this might look like for customers who shop on Amazon."
The world of cryptocurrencies had already taken off after Amazon's recent publication of a job offer for a position as manager of electronic currencies and blockchain, the technology on which these currencies are based.
The job posting stated that Amazon was looking for "a product manager to develop Amazon's digital currency and blockchain strategy."
"We believe that the future will be built on new technologies that will allow modern, fast and inexpensive payments," Amazon commented in a reaction sent by the spokesperson.
"We hope to deliver this future to Amazon customers as quickly as possible."
Amazon's possible interest in electronic currencies, which added to several statements from tech executives last week, was enough to get prices to take off on Monday.
After a nice dip from early May to mid-July, bitcoin briefly rose above $ 40,000, before losing some of its momentum.
It reached $ 38,034 around 8:45 p.m. GMT, up nearly 30% over one week.
The cryptocurrency sector is nonetheless being watched like milk on fire by authorities and regulators, who are concerned about its lack of transparency.
They thus forced Facebook to revise downward its digital currency project "Libra", launched in 2019. Entrusted to an independent association and renamed "diem", the currency will ultimately be a "stablecoin" (cryptocurrency whose price is fixed ), indexed to the dollar.
But transactions are much lower on the social network than on Amazon, an online commerce giant that generates flows of several hundred billion dollars per year.
© 2021 AFP