Bitcoin soars as Amazon shows interest in cryptocurrency

The company is currently looking for a digital currency and blockchain product lead

Bitcoin surged on Monday amid ongoing speculations that retail giant Amazon may start accepting the cryptocurrency for payments.

On Sunday, the virtual currency recorded its greatest increase in over six weeks, after reports that Amazon was looking to hire a digital currency and blockchain product lead.

It was the first time since 16 June that Bitcoin was trading at over $39,000.

On Monday, the largest cryptocurrency soared as much as 15 percent to $39,681 before declining to $38,600 as of 7 a.m. in London.

Other virtual currencies, including etherium and dogecoin, also rallied following rumors of Amazon’s increasing interest in cryptocurrency.

Last week, Amazon ran a recruitment ad on its jobs portal for a digital currency and blockchain product lead, responsible for developing Amazon’s digital currency and blockchain strategy and product roadmap.

The ad says the prospective hire will leverage his/her domain expertise “in blockchain, distributed ledger, central bank digital currencies, and cryptocurrency to develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed, drive the overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities”.

Amazon also said that the crypto product lead would be a part of Amazon’s Payments Acceptance & Experience team and would work closely with teams across the company, including AWS, to develop the roadmap for technical strategy, customer experience, and the launch strategy.

In a report published on Monday, financial news outlet CityAM quoted an unnamed Amazon source as saying that Amazon is planning to accept Bitcoin by the end of this year and may launch its own token next year. The source further claimed that the retail giant is also considering accepting other digital currencies such as BitcoinCash, Ethereum, and Cardano.

“We’re inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.

“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.”

Bitcoin’s value surged earlier this year after Tesla founder Elon Musk announced that his electric vehicle company was considering accepting the token as payment. However, he backtracked on the commitment citing climate concerns, which led to a sharp decline in Bitcoin’s price.

On Monday, Musk’s favorite Dogecoin surged 10 percent to $0.22 after a tweet by the Tesla boss on Sunday suggested that the token was legitimate money.

Musk also said last week at a conference that he personally owns Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and other virtual currencies.