With $11.2 billion profit last year, Amazon is one of the world’s fastest growing retail stores. The profit was almost double the previous year. Although online business is the main theme of Amazon, it has increased physical presence in the recent past. Amazon Go is the latest edition of high tech shopping introduced by the organization. The specialty of this kind of store is you need not stand in a line to check out.

Deep learning algorithms and sensor fusion technologies allow you to shop without going to a cash counter. The items you pick are automatically added to your chart and billed accordingly in Amazon account. A new Amazon Go store will be opened in New York this week at Brookfield Place downtown.

This 1300 sq feet store will join the eleven Go stores running elsewhere in the United States. However, shopping at Amazon Go stores needed an Amazon account linked to a credit card. But this new store is an exception in that it will accept cash as a payment option.

Amazon Go is not accessible to all US citizens due to the debit/credit card requirement. The number of those unbanked people is nearly 8.4 million who are unable to use this incredible service. Amazon has been facing criticism since the introduction of cashless stores due to this discrimination. A popular service should not be accessible to only rich. Local governments have come forward to eliminate discrimination by passing laws to force stores to accept cash.

Several cities including Massachusetts and Philadelphia have already such laws in place. Amazon Go will have serious problems if other major cities make similar laws in the near future. New York, San Francisco, and Chicago may follow the path very soon.

Cryptocurrency can help both unbanked people and cashless stores

Putting a ban on cashless stores may give mental satisfaction to the unbanked, but it should not be the solution. It would be like cutting the head for headache. While the world is getting more digital and tech-dependent, companies with new ideas should not be punished or discouraged. Supporting the unbanked is morally right, but the states are addressing the issue in the wrong way. Going back to the old is not a smart idea. If we can help those without a bank account get access to banking services, stores like Amazon Go will need not to close.

Enabling them to use cryptocurrency can work like a charm in this case. Unbanked people can have the taste of digital society with cryptocurrencies. Bank dependency will drastically fall in places where shopping needs cards or electronic transactions. Stores like Amazon can benefit from crypto adoption in several ways. First, they can increase sales by providing goods to individuals who don’t have bank accounts.

Second, they can stay cashless and save on store employees who are currently paid for working at the cash counter. In this competitive market, companies want to reduce costs in every possible way. With the growing number of stores, Amazon would certainly want to avoid wasting money on less important areas.

Amazon’s current stance for crypto

Amazon still follows no crypto policy but a third party payment processor has come forward to bridge the gap. Now users can buy anything on Amazon using cryptocurrency. The payment is processed through a plugin that uses the lightning network to make the fund available in fiat to the seller’s account. The browser extension connects the buyer’s lightning network wallet to a channel that performs a crypto-visa transaction for the customer. Amazon has no involvement in this process and thus it does not have to violate no-crypto policy.

However, crypto adoption, in reality, should not be like this. Amazon should have developed its own payment processor to accept crypto. Amazon Go may be the ideal place to start this practice. It would make every transaction more convenient and cost-effective. We can hope that Amazon will take the right step at the right time when cryptocurrencies become more trustworthy and widely acceptable. Dagcoin is here to be the frontrunner in the real crypto adoption.