No, Amazon isn't making its own crypto. I have no insider information. However, this will be one of the few companies that makes huge plays in the cryptosphere. I think Amazon is going to be one of the elite megacorps that thrives in this atmosphere as they push weaker companies through the meat grinder of incompetence.
These are the actions I would take if I was in charge of Amazon's crypto division:
- Create a cryptocurrency (DAG).
- Premine all the coins.
- Over the next year, distribute all coins evenly to 600,000 employees.
- Open an internal exchange.
- Buy back coins from employees.
- Go public after one year is up and all coins are distributed.
Create a DAG and premine it.
Directed Acyclic Graphs are the best kind of coin to make if you're going to premine. There is no proof-of-work, there is no proof-of-stake, there is no inflation, there is no blockchain. In fact, with Nano, every wallet is its own blockchain. This tech allows for infinite scaling with very little effort, and IIRC it is also naturally quantum resistant.
The three DAG coins I know of are IOTA, Nano, and Byteball. The obvious one to copy from these three is Nano because it isn't trying to do anything fancy. It is simply trying to be a payment coin. With zero transaction fees and blazing fast speeds this makes it a perfect choice. Micro transactions and money that flows at the stream of time are possible. Previously impossible business models will be designed because of this frictionless system.
Distrubution
During the first year of production, Amazon will retain 100% control of the operation to make sure everything goes smoothly. To avoid regulation and establish a community, they will simply airdrop all of the premined coins onto all employees using an even distribution. For example, if Amazon has 600,000 employees they could premine 7,200,000,000 coins and give every wallet 250 coins every week.
This creates an opportunity for Amazon to cheat. They could create false employees under the control of executives or the corporation itself. However, people like me would accuse them of doing this with zero evidence to back it up. It's simply not worth doing. There are many employees who know exactly how many people work at Amazon and who those people are, so this tactic would be pretty risky from a PR perspective. How can Amazon make money on this investment if they don't premine anything for themselves?
internal exchange / atomic swaps
Before the coin goes public Amazon should allow their employees to dump their coins. Amazon can buy back their own product for cheap from their own employees. Now, Amazon can play the public relations game.
They can claim to have created the most decentralized cryptocurrency in existence (they have). They can show how they've basically airdropped free money to every single person that works for them. Rah Rah Rah! Go Amazon! Best company ever!
What's the easiest way to let employees dump coins? Allow goods on Amazon.com to be bought with the crypto. This will drive the public insane because they have no way of acquiring the coins yet. Hype up the coin for a whole year and then unleash it to the public.
Going Public
The richer you are, the more free stuff you get. Do you think Amazon will have to pay to get their coin listed on exchanges? LOL, of course not. A year has passed. The public is clamoring to get their hands on this private cryptocurrency. Amazon stock has likely 2x because they said the word "blockchain", and they hardly had to do any work because they just cloned Nano (which likely makes Nano moon but this is off topic).
Once the coin goes public, anyone can make a wallet and run a node. Amazon can just sit back and see what happens while rightfully claiming that they just made the most decentralized currency that has ever existed, all the while profiting heavily off of it. I would have made for a good little capitalist if I was born into an elite family.
Why hasn't this happened yet?
My theory is that these corporate greed-monsters simply don't understand what they are missing out on. They are all trying to figure out how they can control these currencies and how to profit off of them, when in reality they don't need to do any of that. They just need to build it and slap their brand on it and it will be worth bank. If it doesn't work out then they can create another and another and another. There is no limit. The power to create currency is available to everyone now.
Oh you know what? We want to make a smart-contract coin. Oh you know what? We want to make a POW coin. Oh you know what? We want to make a POS coin.
And so on and so on and so on.
Most people out there are not understanding that the value of crypto comes from community. Amazon has a gigantic built in community. They can literally profit by giving money away. This is insane, it doesn't make sense, so no one believes it. However, it's more insane that corporations are just sitting on their hands while they could be sidestepping regulations and making profits hand over foot.
When a businessman or investor looks at the blockchain they are thinking about block rewards and fees charged and premines and stake-weighted inflation. They think about the currency as a product that needs to be sold. In reality all profits are derived from the underlying community. They no longer need an exploit to profit, and I think this confuses a large percentage of capitalists.
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