Amazon CEO Has Some Thoughts About Bitcoin, NFTs
Amazon’s (AMZN) – Get Amazon.com, Inc. Report top executive can see a non-fungible future.
CEO Andy Jassy shared recently his thoughts about NFTs and cryptocurrency and it came down to a split decision.
Crypto is ‘Awesome’
“I don’t own any of NFT’s myself and Bitcoin. I don’t have Bitcoin myself,” he told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “So, you know, I think I expected NFT’s will continue to grow very significantly.”
Jassy added that “we’re not probably close to adding crypto as a payment mechanism in our retail business, but I do believe over time that that you’ll see crypto become bigger and it’s awesome.”
As far as Amazon selling NFTs, Jassy said “I think it’s possible down the road on the platform.”
Non fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a way of owning a piece of digital content, be that a photo or a gif.
Jassy, who previously helmed Amazon Web Services, succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO last July, and was responsible for starting its Amazon Managed Blockchain service.
The chief executive’s remarks inspired range of reactions on social media.
One commenter tweeted an image of former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez.
Being Indecisive?
“Amazon has always been a leader for caring about their users and workers, so it’s fantastic. He’s gonna fit in great /s,” the caption read, indicating that the statement was sarcastic.
Amazon is challenging the results of a vote to unionize at a company warehouse in Staten Island, NY.
During the CNBC interview, Jassy said Amazon “empowers” its employees and that a union could negatively impact a worker’s relationship with their manager.
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“To say probably not means to be indecisive, where you’re not fully saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and you’re not too sure about a certain situation unless it’s presented to you in the right manner,” one person said on Twitter.
“While they publicly are saying that they are not adding crypto payments at this time, I’m positive that they are working on it in the background,” another person said. “Therefore, looking past the PR, I’m sure that within Amazon they are working on such crypto projects in the background.”
“If you do some google searches and look at the jobs they are hiring for, roads point towards both NFTs and experimenting with crypto,” another post read.
‘How Much for This NFT…?’
“I’m not interested in buying nft’s from Amazon or fb…I’m not interested in buying nft’s from Amazon or fb…”, one commenter tweeted.
The same person followed up with “though that will be a mass exposure type platform. Everyone has Amazon.
The NFT market has been taking some well-publicized hits lately.
In January, the average sale price of an NFT was over $6,800 with daily sales of $160 million.
About three months later that average sale price is down to $2,000 with daily sales of $26 million in March, according to market tracker NonFungible.
Bridge Oracle CEO Sina Estavi bought an NFT of Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter, Inc. Report founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet for $2.9 million with the idea of selling it and donating half the proceeds to charity.
Things did not go as planned. When the auction closed, and instead of the $25 million Estavi anticipated, the top bid came in at just $280.
Estavi, who has has likened his NFT to the Mona Lisa, told the news service that he may never sell the tweet unless he received a “high bid.”
Meanwhile, ApeCoin, the token linked to the Bored Ape Yatch Club NFT, tanked in its debut.
