I saw an ad for this "coin" on the sidebar of a website I was visiting and thought:
"wow, did Amazon release a coin?"

Buy 10,000 Amazon coins for no good reason! Hey, it's a digital currency :P NO! It's a gift card...

Turns out: This is nothing new. The Amazon Coin came out in late 2013, early 2014.

Also turns out: "Amazon Coin" isn't really a cryptocurrency or even a token (ala ERC-20 Ethereum tokens). It's basically a gift-card.

^{link to Wiki page -- "Amazon Coin" wiki page -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin}

I call it BaloneyCoin because it's phony-baloney.

Let's review the points why its a BaloneyCoin:

1. It is centralized.
2. It cannot be traded in any way
3. Not redeemable for cash in any way.
4. Unlimited supply.
5. Not blockchain based (from anything I could find)
6. Cannot be transferred off the Amazon platform, into a private wallet, for example.
7. Price tied to an Amazon-internal value of 1 penny per coin. Unable to increase in value.

To me, it's absolutely incredible how they could think this would take off.

Definitely somebody at Amazon, if not many, were objecting to this in meetings leading up to its launch. Very valid concerns such as its potential to insult tech-savvy customers with a fake attempt at a crypto-token must have been raised.

This definitely irks me. Why bother trying to jump on a bandwagon like this when you are already a whale? Amazon has a first-mover advantage on most projects they undertake and have the power and money to drive most of their ideas into the mainstream.

Why in the world they would try to fake the funk like this causes me a great ponderous mindstate. Thereby, I wrap up this post and move on to filling my mind with more fruitful ideas.

Have you all heard of this?
Is it something you've used?
Do you see any merit to it?
Am I being too hard on Amazon?