Share this article
Bitcoin Marketplace Purse Unveils 'Instant' Amazon Shopping
Purse has announced 'Instant', a new product that aims to broaden the appeal of its existing Amazon-based e-commerce marketplace.
By Pete Rizzo
Updated Sep 11, 2021, 11:39 a.m. Published Apr 28, 2015, 9:00 p.m.
Purse has announced 'Instant', a new product that aims to expand the appeal of its existing e-commerce marketplace while continuing its focus on Amazon shopping.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Launched in 2014, Purse now claims 32,000 users on its traditional 'Name Your Discount' marketplace, which matches individuals looking to buy bitcoin with a credit card and users willing to sell bitcoin in exchange for savings on Amazon purchases.
Purse co-founder Andrew Lee explained that Instant finds the company stepping in to play an active role on the formerly peer-to-peer (P2P) platform, purchasing Amazon gift cards from its market and holding a reserve of these assets for buyers who want items more quickly.
Drawing on a more familiar product as an example, Lee told CoinDesk:
"Our model was like Airbnb, person to person. This is like if Airbnb said let's take the 100 most popular locations in San Francisco and just contract them out and offer them to consumers."
In exchange for reduced savings, 5% as compared to as much as 20%, Lee said that Instant buyers will benefit from free shipping with Amazon Prime.
Lee went on to suggest the move was inspired by a need to improve the platform's user experience.
"In terms of the delivery time, we didn't have much of a guarantee," Lee explained. "Sometimes it would be one-two days, other times it would be two weeks. With Purse Instant we're taking out all those variables."
Lee went on to suggest that he believes the move positions Purse to be at the forefront of using bitcoin as a means to penetrate the consumer deals industry while solving what he called the liquidity issues facing owners of Amazon gift cards.
"Long-term vision, we have a unique value proposition enabled by bitcoin," Lee continued. "If you think of those people who hunt for promo codes, you can skip all that now by just having bitcoin."
The move comes amid a recent flurry of experimentation from the Roger Ver and Bobby Lee-backed team, which launched a bid to take its model into the physical world with a bitcoin-only retail shop in February.
Revisit CoinDesk's review of Purse's 'Name Your Discount' marketplace here.
Image credit: Twin Design / Shutterstock.com
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Zcash Floats Dynamic Fee Plan to Ensure Users Won’t Be Priced Out
ZEC zoomed 12% amid the fee discussion, beating gains across all major tokens.
What to know:
- A new proposal by Shielded Labs suggests a dynamic fee market for Zcash to address rising transaction costs and network congestion.
- The proposed system uses a median fee per action observed over the prior 50 blocks, with a priority lane for high-demand periods.
- The changes aim to maintain Zcash's privacy features while avoiding complex protocol redesigns.
Top Stories
