Every day there is more news about what can, can and should happen in the world of Cryptocurrencies (CC’s) and Blockchain. There has been significant investment, research, and a lot of talk, but the coins and projects are still unconventional. They have not yet delivered the planned explosive changes. Many ideas are being discussed and developed, but none have produced great revolutionary results. What may be necessary is that the big players in the industry, such as IBM, Microsoft and the large financial services corporations, continue to advance in the development of useful Blockchain applications, those without which the whole world can NOT live.
Financial services are a mature target for Blockchain projects because banking systems today are still based on archaic ideas that have been faithfully and painfully digitized, and because these systems are archaic, they are expensive to maintain and operate. Banks almost have a good reason for charging the high service fees they charge: their systems are not efficient. These systems have many layers of redundant data, as everyone involved in a transaction must have their version of the details of the transaction. And then there is the business of ensuring that there is a trusted third party to erase all of these transactions, which requires even more versions of the same data. Blockchain technology holds the promise of addressing these issues, as each transaction will be captured in just ONE block of the chain, and because it is a distributed database, security and integrity are integrated and ensured. It may take some time to build trust in these new systems, given that the verifiers of Blockchain transactions are not the traditional clearinghouses that banks use and trust today. Banks’ confidence in a new technology will take time, and it will take even longer for that confidence to reach consumers.
Another company that will soon be ready to give CC and Blockchain a big boost is Amazon. It seems that Amazon is preparing to launch its own crypto currency. This is a company with income the size of a good size country, and is in a position to issue a digital token that would be fully convertible with other CCs and also fiat currencies. A move like this would allow Amazon to:
- issue coins (AMAZON) to reward and incentivize developers on any of their platforms
- Issue coins to consumers to use for in-app purchases.
- Issue coins to players to buy virtual items in the game.
- issue coins to repeat customers as part of a loyalty program
Amazon may have the ideal ecosystem of customers and partners to make all of this happen. Worldwide they have around 300 million customer accounts, roughly the US population, and they have 100,000 sellers on their platforms, with millions of items for sale. There is hardly a more mainstream company than Amazon, with a massive and vibrant economy all tied together. Amazon’s imminent entry into the CC world may signal the adoption of blockchain technology by major institutions on a large scale. What could be around the corner if an AMAZON coin comes into play is something like a DISNEY coin, a DELTA AIRLINES coin, a CARNIVAL CRUISES coin, a HOME DEPOT coin – you get the picture.
Stay tuned!
