BITCOIN SURGES AFTER SPECULATION OVER AMAZON’S PLAN TO ALLOW USERS TO PAY IN CRYPTOCURRENCY

Bitcoin recorded its greatest surge in over six weeks on Sunday, trading at over $39,000 for the first time since June 16, after reports that e-commerce giant Amazon is looking to hire a digital currency and blockchain product lead. The virtual currency, the price of which has risen by over 20 per cent in the last week, also climbed above its 50-day moving average value for the first time since 9 May. This latest surge comes after Amazon said in its jobs portal that it is looking to hire a person who will “innovate within the payments and financial systems” on their platform. The multinational tech company noted that the prospective hire should have expertise in “Blockchain, Distributed Ledger, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Cryptocurrency” and will drive “overall vision, product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities.” According to the jobs posting, the crypto product lead will be a part of the company’s Payments Acceptance & Experience team and also be working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a cryptocurrencies-based strategy to be integrated into their customer experience.