By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock was trading higher in Monday’s premarket amid speculation that the Cloud and retail giant is exploring venturing into digital currencies.
It emerged last week that the U.S.’s biggest e-commerce company had advertised a vacancy for a digital currency product lead. It hasn't given any other indication of its intentions toward crypto, however.
Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD), the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, crossed $39,000 for the first time since June 16, and touched 39,639.9, the day’s highest so far. At 5.20 am ET, it traded at 38,282, almost 11% higher.
The crypto is still about 40% off the April 14 high of 64,778.
Other cryptos surged too. Ethereum ETH/USD was up 8%, Cardano Cardano 10% and Dogecoin DOGE/USD 14%.
Crypto prices have been struggling since a Chinese crackdown on their trading two months ago. China dealt another major blow last month when it shut down cryptocurrency mining projects in Sichuan province.
Sichuan was China's second-biggest bitcoin mining province and the country accounted for more than half of global bitcoin production.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s comments last week also boosted sentiment for the cryptos. He said the company could again start accepting bitcoin as payment if crypto mining becomes less reliant on fossil fuels. That appears unlikely in the near term, as mining operations have migrated to countries like Kazakhstan, which is just as heavily reliant on coal for its electricity.