Bitcoin May Be Accepted by Amazon
Patent Approved
The Trademark and Patent office in U.S. has accepted Amazon Technologies filling for a patent on a data marketplace. The patent question was originally filed in September 2014 and makes reference to bitcoin transactions twice.
The CNBC reported, that the first bitcoin-related instance described “a data stream that includes global bitcoin transactions. The patent provides an example:
“ For example, a group of electronic or internet retailers who accept bitcoin transactions may have a shipping address that may correlate with the bitcoin address. The electronic retailers may combine the shipping address with the bitcoin transaction data to create correlated data and republish the combined data as a combined data stream. A group of telecommunications providers may subscribe downstream to the combined data stream and be able to correlate the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of the transactions to countries of origin. Government agencies may be able to subscribe downstream and correlate tax transaction data to help identify transaction participants”.
Also CNBC pointed, that the patents second bitcoin-related example describes a law enforcement agency may be interested in global bitcoin transaction data for the purpose to correlate bitcoin wallet addresses to IP addresses. The patent says:
“ For example, a law enforcement agency may be a customer and may desire to receive global bitcoin transactions, correlated by country, with ISP data to determine source IP addresses and shipping addresses that correlate to bitcoin addresses. The agency may not want additional available enhancements such as local bank data records. The streaming data marketplace may price this desired data out per GB (gigabyte), for example, and the agency can start running analytics on the desired data using the analysis module”.
The Good and The Bad
It remains to be seen, whether Amazon’s plans are a good thing remains to be seen. Providing law enforcement agencies and regulators with a wealth of bitcoin-related information certainly destracts from cryptocurrency’s promise of anonymity.
On the other hand, providing Amazon and it’s stable of vendors with an effective mechanism to accept bitcoin payments is a massive boost to the dominant cryptocurrency’s quest for mass acceptance. With Amazon leading the charge, it’s safe to assume that every other online marketplace would have to follow suit, lest they risk falling further behind the online behemoth.
On the other side, supporting Amazon and it’s steady of vendors with a successful mechanism to adopt bitcoin payments is a massive boost to the prepotent cryptocurrency’s quest for mass acceptance. With Amazon leading, it’s safe to suppose that every other online marketplace would have to follow suit. They risk falling further.
