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Amazon Coins and How the Definition of 'Crypto-Currency' Is Getting Too Loose
Nerval's Lobster writes "Amazon has expanded support for its Amazon Coins from Kindle Fire tablets to Google Android mobile devices.In its press release, Amazon positioned its e-currency as the ultimate in convenience for customers who don't want their credit-card statements riddled with lots of micro-purchases from Amazon's App Store. Expanding the currency's reach is also a potential win for Amazon, which wants to create an end-to-end ecosystem for app developers. But Amazon Coins' existence could alienate the same demographic that made Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies such a hit. The company tethers the Coins to a user identity, and likely keeps significant records on its crypto-currency ecosystem: who buys what when. That concept is anathema to those online denizens who embraced Bitcoin as a way to make purchases without needing to reveal a real-world identity, or deal with a currency tethered to a central repository; genuine crypto-currency can be used to purchase pretty much anything from a purveyor willing to take it, including—in the case of Silk Road and other online bazaars—drugs and weapons. Indeed, Amazon Coins has more to do with a corporate 'currency' like the now-defunct Microsoft Points than an actual crypto-currency like Bitcoin. But that hasn't stopped some people from getting confused about it."
A virtual gift card is not the same thing a a virtual currency.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
samzenpus's mom is getting too loose.
Fuck beta.
I'm guessing it's their way to force people to log in.
But then, even without the beta, slashdot was scraping the bottom anyways.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Surely Microsoft had a good reason for moving away from MS Points. I don't think reducing the number of credit card transactions actually benefits the consumer since the consumer isn't paying a per transaction fee
In my experience, 'classic' electronic currencies follow this general pattern: 1) you obtain them from a bank, 2) you pass it to another user, and 3) that other user brings it back to the bank.
At best, the bank can't see where the receiving party's money came from. But still, every 'coin' in circulation goes from bank -> user -> another user -> back to the bank.
The big difference with cash is this: using cash, money can pass from #1 user to a 2nd user -> 3rd user -> 4th user -> back to the bank. With the bank having no way to figure out what happened in between. Transfers from 1 -> 2, 2 -> 3, and 3 -> 4 need not involve a bank at all.
To me, anything that fits the 2nd definition is interesting. Anything that fits the 1st definition, is just electronic payments in the classical sense that eg. governments might be monitoring every single transaction. Regardless of implementation. So if in this case, Amazon = 'the bank', do we even care, if that currency clearly isn't 'electronic cash' ?
That's why I only accept girly giggles.
People getting confused about currency and money is something that is a very very old phenomenon. This article is no exception.
Amazon Coins and Bitcoin solve two different problems. The average Amazon customer probably heard of Bitcoin but doesn't know exactly what it is. They probably understand that Amazon Coins are just gift cards though. I don't see the problem.
Amazon Coins are nothing but 'points' or 'credits' or 'tokens', and those have been around for a very long time.
The blog author is... pretty much clueless. Nobody but him is confusing Bitcoins and Amazon Coins, or referring to the latter as crypto-currency. Nobody but him is confused about the difference between the two.
I was fine not knowing this existed... this article is part of the problem!
The definition of "3D printed" is also quite vague.... Was there a 3D printed in the other room? It wasn't even plugged or in working condition? Doesn't matter! It's 3D printed!
What people accept for currency online doesn't need to have everything just right. It just needs to be in demand to a degree.
If you can buy stuff with it, people will want it.
God spoke to me
Who gives half a shit how many line items are on their debit/credit statement? This has all the logic of putting money on a gift card.
I guess it could be used like an allowance for kids but it'd make more sense to give the kid a pre-paid Visa/Mastercard and drop a fixed amount on it every month. That way they can use it anywhere instead of just at the one or two places where some proprietary currency is accepted.
The whole thing smacks of Itchy and Scratchy Bucks.
Bitcoin blocks are Sha checksums of transactions digitally signed. Blocks have the check sum of the previous block in the chain. Bitcoins contain complete transaction record going all the way back to the original bitcoin that started that chain of transactions. But if Alice buys drugs from Bob and given a bit coin forever there is a transaction recorded that Alice gave so many bitcoins to Bob. The transactions are between cyber entities and it is difficult to decode the block, find the cyber identity and then link it to a real identity. But all claims of anonymity is based on the level of difficulty in decoding the blocks to get the cyber accounts and linking them to real life. Not based on any notion of mathematical impossibility or secrecy.
Is it anywhere close to being right?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Microsoft used to sell "points" to buy stuff over Xbox Live. Interestingly enough last year they stopped and went to a currency based system. So instead of "rent a movie on demand for 600 points" it became "Rent Movie for $2.99" or whatever the real dollars equivalent were. And I much prefer the new system.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
To buy anything online with bitcoins, you will need to provide a shipping address, thus revealing quite a bit.
Can you buy an ounce of blow with it?
If yes, it's currency.
If no, it ain't.
Pretty simple. It also sums up why governments have issue, and will inevitably crack down.
A crypto currency backed by a nation-state would be a very interesting thing indeed.
..don't panic
From TFA:
"Expanding the currencyâ(TM)s reach is also a potential win for Amazon, which wants to create an end-to-end ecosystem for app developers."
Um, no, that's not the main reason Amazon created the coins, esp. since the app developers see the same amount of cash regardless of how the user paid. The reason Amazon likes the coins instead of making a bunch of 99 cent charges to a credit card is simple:
1. Charging $10 once to a credit card is cheaper to Amazon than charging $1 10 times.
2. Lock-in, this is the traditional "gift card" route, any money put into the Amazon coin ecosystem will eventually have to be used on an Amazon good/service. If you buy $100 in coins but only use $80, well tough. This has nothing to do with creating a huge ecosystem where the coins can be traded freely for goods and services that have nothing to do with Amazon.
Monstar L
That concept is anathema to those online denizens who <strike>embraced Bitcoin as a way to make purchases without needing to reveal a real-world identity</strike> buy child pornography, drugs, weapons, and contract assassination.
*coin are just tokens like the ones you get at clubs, casinos etc. As long as governments have the monopoly on violence, people have no choice but to use government issued currencies (to pay wages and taxes). Like other goods, they can buy tokens with it, and people may accept tokens as payment, but tokens are not legal tender. It's just barter.
ZOMG! Bitcoin and Amazon Coins are differents!!!1!
Yes, yes they are.
Amazon Coins and How the Definition of 'Crypto-Currency' Is Getting Too Loose
Is it? Who's calling Amazon Coins a crypto-currency? Is it "no-one"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
They have to print and mail your paper statement. That costs real money, although I would imagine they have it covered up to quite a few pages.
Could Amazon ever allow other merchants to accept its "coin", in effect creating a more fungible currency?
They're big enough in enough ways (size, computing capacity, etc) that they almost could create a stored value system and transaction processing ability that they might be able to induce other vendors to accept their coin that they would in turn redeem for the merchant as actual currency.
Smaller vendors would get access to a sophisticated payment system and perhaps gain customer confidence or customers wanting to spend/get rid of coins on items Amazon doesn't carry.
Amazon would gain the transaction info for their analytics as well as maybe more consumer acceptance of their coin.
I wonder how long until big e-commerce companies attempt to create a common currency-type payment system that allows them to bypass Visa/MC/banks and possibly even deal with national currency conversion costs.
Saw this on Suze Orman.
$1 billion in gift cards go unredeemed
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...
I wonder how much Microsoft makes this way with their Xbox live points.
When did this happen? I have never used it, do not know of anyone who have used it. Have never HEARD of anyone who has used it. Have not seen any convenient way to use it. Have not seen any secure way to keep a wallet.
"Hit" must be more than just being able to generate press and being used by criminals to buy drugs and kiddie porn.
Federal governments reserve the right to print currency for a damn good reason.
You can only be assured of dollar anonymity if you're sure you weren't on camera at the ATM, weren't on camera on the street, and weren't on camera at the convenience store. And that the convenience store owner isn't using "Where's George?"
It's impossible to be 100.000% assured of anonymity.
With BitCoin, not only is there a log of every transaction, but everyone on earth has access to it. You can actually trace a coin from when it was created through every single wallet it touched! And all one needs to tie a wallet to a physical person is some IP logging data which is fairly easy to acquire.
I don't know how BitCoin and anonymity got tied together. It is pretty much the LEAST anonymous currency that exists on earth. At least with Amazon coins, one would need to get access to Amazon's servers to find out who bought what, or issue a court order of some kind - random joe down the street can't tell what I bought.
The genesis Block, first block of the Bitcoin block chain, contains data, which is this message: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."