Amazon’s new hire signaling a growing interest in cryptocurrency

Amazon is hiring a digital currency and blockchain expert for its payments team. Although, for now, the major retailer doesn’t accept any cryptocurrencies as payment for its products, the posting might signals that Amazon is taking a more serious look at crypto.

Amazon is seeking to hire an “experienced product leader to develop Amazon’s Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap,” according to a recent job posting on the company’s website. Amazon wants a new crypto expert to lead its payments acceptance and experience team, which suggesting the world’s largest online retailer is considering adopting cryptocurrency payments.

“You will leverage your domain expertise in Blockchain, Distributed Ledger, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Cryptocurrency to develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed, drive overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities,” as the job posting said.

According to Amazon’s statement: “We’re inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon. We believe the future will be built on new technologies that enable modern, fast, and inexpensive payments, and hope to bring that future to Amazon customers as soon as possible.”

For now, Amazon uses blockchain technology for its web services but doesn’t accept any cryptocurrencies as payment for its products. As Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, said in 2017, the company wasn’t particularly focused on blockchain technology, although it was “watching it carefully.”

Earlier in July, Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing unit, was looking for a Head of Product for its long-used Amazon Managed Blockchain, which provides the hosting for developers building in Hyperledger Fabric or Ethereum. The preference granted for applicants with DeFi experience, suggesting AWS could be building new capabilities for protocols that leverage a blockchain to offer decentralized financial products.