Amazon may announce crypto to rival Libra, but will it really matter?

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Analysts believe that Amazon is quite likely to launch its own cryptocurrency to compete with Facebook’s Libra, a new study by intelligence company Cindicator has indicated. It revealed that 22.6% of the analysts polled believe the e-commerce giant will launch a crypto, with 14% backing Google to make a similar move and 10% backing Apple.

The study looked at Libra’s competitors in the race to become a global currency, despite many experts calling out the project for its centralization. According to the analysts, some of Libra’s rivals are Telegram’s crypto project, China’s expected central bank digital currency, Binance’s open blockchain project Venus and the Tokenized Asset Portfolio on MakerDAO.

The analysts also disclosed that they believe Libra, which Facebook admitted could be a big failure, may face competition from Facebook’s tech rivals. In the past, tech giants have been tied with crypto projects, but nothing has materialized yet. The analysts believe that the Jeff Bezos-led Amazon is the most likely to launch a crypto project. Amazon’s line of business would make it a suitable candidate for crypto, but the company hasn’t made any known strides in this area.

Google, Apple, Walmart, Microsoft, Alibaba, Samsung and IBM were the other tech giants that the analysts believe could launch competing crypto projects.

The analysts also singled out Libra’s centralized nature as the biggest reason it’s likely to fail. Other reasons cited include lack of trust in Facebook and general privacy reasons.

While Amazon has yet to make any concrete move involving crypto, it certainly has the resources and the required customer base to do so. In fact, controversial Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said earlier this year that Amazon’s entry into the crypto industry is inevitable. However, would it really matter or would it be just an exercise in futility? Facebook’s experience suggests it would be the latter.

For the large corporations, any crypto project they engage in would have to be highly centralized, ensuring that these companies have an unquestionable say on the supply and use of the crypto. A centralized crypto, such as Libra, fails to observe one of the most basic ethos set by Satoshi Nakamoto when he launched Bitcoin a decade ago.

An executive board member of the European Central Bank called out Libra, and by extension any other centralized crypto project, as cartel-like. Giving the power of money supply to a few companies, the same companies that have time and again been accused of mishandling user data would be foolhardy.