Amazon has denied a report that claimed it would start accepting Bitcoin payments soon, and in the process, it might have slowed the cryptocurrency's rebound.
UK newspaper City A.M. reported Monday that Amazon planned to accept Bitcoin payments "by the end of the year." The report's anonymous source also said "Ethereum, Cardano and Bitcoin Cash will be next in line before they bring about eight of the most popular cryptocurrencies online" and that Amazon would have its own token ready by 2022.
The report coincided with rapid increases to the prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin had previously struggled to maintain a $30,000 per-coin price, for example, but Coinbase data (opens in new tab) shows it peaked at $40,593 on Monday. City A.M.'s report could have contributed to that rise, but the fantasy was short-lived.
"Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters, CoinDesk, and other publications. "We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon."
Bitcoin's price dropped after that statement was released: It dropped as low as $36,413 before reaching $38,330 at time of writing, according to Coinbase's data. The cryptocurrency's value is still up approximately 24% week-over-week, and the drop was likely related to other factors as well, but the recovery definitely slowed.
Amazon's statement doesn't preclude the possibility of accepting cryptocurrency payments in the future, however, or of introducing its own token. The company didn't jump off the crypto hype train; it just stopped adding more coal to the engine.
