Amazon tells customers: No crypto for you!

Amazon has no current plans for a cryptocurrency like Facebook’s Libra (aka GlobalCoin).

Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance 2019 event earlier this month, Patrick Gaulthier, Vice President of Amazon Pay, said: “It’s fresh, it’s speculative; at Amazon, we don’t really deal with the speculative, in the now.”

The e-commerce giant might, however, consider such an option later on down the line. “We deal with data a lot, so I’ll be happy to have that conversation two or three years from now,” Gaulthier commented.

Have no fear, crypto fans

It is now possible to buy stuff on Amazon with Bitcoin et al, thanks to US startup Moon. It recently announced that any Lightning Network-enabled wallet could now be used through its Chrome browser extension. Prior to this, a small group of beta users used Moon to spend crypto on e-commerce sites by connecting the browser extension to exchange accounts like Coinbase.

“[The extension] will pop up a QR code and it will have the Lightning invoice, which you could also copy and paste if you can’t use the QR code for some reason, and you’ll be able to pay with your favourite Lightning wallet,” Moon CEO Ken Kruger explained.