At Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance 2019 event, Patrick Gaulthier, vice president of Amazon Pay aired his view on Facebook’s recent crypto initiative. To him, the kind of value transfer system Facebook launched this week was a step too far in recent climate.
Quoting Patrick: “It’s fresh, it’s speculative; at Amazon, we don’t really deal with the speculative, in the now”.
Lawmakers square up at Libra as Amazon backs off cryptocurrency
Recent developments from Facebook has continued to cause a stir in the cryptocurrency industry. Financial and government circles have also been unsettled after the first publicity from Libra went live.
Billed as a network created to allow users send money like messages or pictures on social media, the scheme has attracted scorn for its technical setup and roadmap. Some lawmakers have already laid requests to halt the company’s development altogether. From the perspective of a potential alternative to fiat money and central banks, commentators have advised several governments to block Facebook and other products supporting Libra. The Senate Banking Committee in the United States is expected to hold a dedicated hearing on the cryptocurrency next month.
Thus far, Amazon has stayed far away from cryptocurrency implementation despite various rumors in recent years. Instead, it has opted for blockchain research. The retail giant may reconsider the Libra-style cryptocurrency option in the future. Although, this is dependent on how the space evolves.
In the words of Gaulthier, “At Amazon, we deal with data a lot, so I’ll be happy to have this conversation two or three years from now”.
