After finishing the entire thing, Bezos was actually a bit dazed because he had no idea what Madame Versailles wanted him to see this for.
Could it be that she intended to open up a brand new business sector, this BtB thing?
That would be the biggest joke in the world. As a top global entrepreneur, Bezos could see at a glance that this was complete nonsense and had no practical operational meaning whatsoever.
Because this currency looked very good, possessing incredibly strong network attributes, and was indeed the best online currency. But the problem was that this thing had no assets or credit to back it up.
In other words, why would this thing be worth anything?
Something that could be obtained with a simple computer calculation, something that even a pauper could easily come by, why could it be used as currency?
This was simply the biggest joke. Normally, Bezos would just take it as a bit of fun and glance at it, never having considered getting involved with something like this.
But the problem was, Madame Versailles had specifically pointed this out to him, so it couldn't be a joke. She must have had something in mind for this. Otherwise, there was no reason for her to mention it to him specifically.
So Bezos began to rack his brains, pondering whether this thing truly had a chance to become a currency.
But Bezos thought for an entire night and couldn't come up with any other conclusion. No matter how he looked at it, this thing couldn't become a currency, absolutely not!
It wasn't until the next morning that Bezos, with somewhat bloodshot eyes, saw the newspaper his wife handed him. This newspaper was the famous Wall Street Journal, and today's front-page headline celebrated the stock market breaking new highs, reaching its highest point since 2005, signifying that the stock market had returned to its peak. US funds had stood back up in less than a year, successfully weathering the subprime mortgage crisis.
"Alas, and they're treating people like fools!" Seeing this news, Bezos couldn't help but curl his lip. This thing might fool others, but it couldn't fool him.
Only the stock market had recovered, not the US economy.
For example, companies that had collapsed due to the subprime mortgage crisis had a复工率 (work resumption rate) of less than 10%, directly leading to persistently high unemployment rates, with a large number of people unable to find jobs.
In such a situation, how could it be said that the subprime mortgage crisis had been overcome?
Could the losses of this 90% be recovered in the future?
Bezos knew very well that it was basically impossible. As a former top e-commerce player in the country, Bezos possessed a vast amount of data on US commodity logistics.
Before 2008, of the products sold by Wanbaoge, at least 30% were shipped from the factory sites of various domestic physical enterprises.
But after 2008, less than 10% of products were shipped from various enterprises. The remaining products, apart from individual sellers, were almost all shipped from customs warehouses in large quantities.
For this reason, Wanbaoge had even specially established dozens of outlets near various customs warehouses, specifically to facilitate these merchants who shipped directly from customs warehouses.
And up until the moment Wanbaoge closed, a large number of goods were still shipped from customs warehouses, even more so than before the bailout plan.
In other words, the so-called bailout plan had not truly saved the US physical economy. Instead, it relied more on imported goods.
This might sound somewhat incredible, but Bezos was not surprised at all.
The reason was simple: foreign products, especially those from China, were cheap. They were more than half the price of domestically produced goods. So why would he import expensive domestic products instead of sourcing directly from China?
There was no reason not to make more money!
Furthermore, in mid-2008, Oriental Amazon announced a further cooperation with Jiangnan Mall. Not only did it directly display a large number of Jiangnan Mall's products on the Oriental Amazon page, but it also established another website called US Amazon.
Unlike Oriental Amazon, which was specifically for consumers, US Amazon was a business-to-business website. Businesses or operators were required to register on this website.
Through this website, one could see the global supply prices of the same product and corresponding shipping cost estimates in real-time.
In other words, merchants could use this website to find the cheapest suppliers worldwide and obtain products from them.
With the help of this website, many merchants who had previously had no way of knowing suddenly discovered that there were so many cheap goods in the world. They then began to order goods in large quantities through this website, which also caused US import data to surge.
Under normal circumstances, such data should have attracted the high attention of the government. However, because the US was facing the subprime mortgage crisis at the time, the entire country desperately needed good news to stimulate the domestic market.
Therefore, the surge in import data, a situation that was clearly detrimental to the national economy, was analyzed by these politicians as an extremely positive indicator. This indicated that the US economy was highly recovering, otherwise, why would the American people have more money to buy foreign goods?
Well, this logic was invincible.
In summary, Bezos was well aware that this bailout plan of $60 trillion had only saved the large capitalists, major entrepreneurs, and financial institutions. Ordinary people had actually received nothing, and had even lost many job opportunities.
It was just that because this bailout plan also included a policy of issuing a $300 subsidy per person per month, which greatly enhanced national purchasing power, the general public did not feel the changes brought about by imports and exports. Instead, they felt that their lives seemed to have improved.
Getting back to the point, after complaining about Wall Street, Bezos suddenly thought of something and fell into deep thought.
After nearly 20 minutes, Bezos suddenly woke up and slapped his thigh forcefully, saying, "That's right. Since the US has not truly emerged from the subprime mortgage crisis, yet the stock market has returned to its peak, with a total market value increase of over ten trillion dollars."
"If a mere illusory confidence can bring about an increase of over ten trillion dollars, then why can't something like BtB be sold for one dollar each?" At this moment, Bezos had an epiphany, and he thought of even more.
If we can operate a digital currency, and this digital currency is truly successful, the benefits would be immense.
Firstly, we can completely control online payments. After all, the issuance rights of online currency are in our hands. Then, who else can defeat us in online currency? Even Jiangnan Group doesn't believe it. And I can even take this opportunity to eliminate the Western Mustang Wallet!
Thinking of the Western Mustang Wallet, Bezos couldn't help but grit his teeth, because in his opinion, a large part of the reason for his miserable defeat was due to this Western Mustang Wallet.
The impact of the Western Mustang Wallet on e-commerce was too great. Because for online shopping, the most influential factor affecting the shopping experience would definitely be logistics, and the second would be the payment tool.
How to get users to transfer their funds online and then pay with cash online would allow us to grasp the core traffic of e-commerce.
Originally, Wanbaoge used the payment tool PayPal. This software could directly cooperate with banks that had enabled online banking functions, quickly transferring money from bank accounts to online merchants, thus completing the payment process.
To be fair, the entire payment process was very cumbersome. First, one needed to go through complicated applications on the online banking page to enable work, and then bind their online banking account with PayPal.
And binding did not mean that payment was successful with just a click. Users needed to pay through PayPal first, then operate on the online banking page through the pop-up window, enter the corresponding verification codes, and so on.
Assuming no impact from internet speed, a single payment process would take at least 5 minutes to complete. This was equivalent to affecting the payment experience.
Even worse, some online banks would not pay immediately, but would require waiting for 24 hours, or even 48 hours, before paying. Then the order would remain stuck until the merchant received the payment notification and shipped the goods. This would waste a lot of time.
However, considering that everyone was using PayPal or similar payment methods, it was all the same, so there was no difference.
Oh, and by the way, the founder of PayPal is Musk. Yes, that Musk whom everyone knows.
But with the advent of the Western Mustang Wallet, all of this was destroyed.
Because the operating model of Western Mustang was completely different from PayPal. PayPal's operating model was a typical intermediary model, acting as an intermediary between online banking and e-commerce websites, helping to pay from online banking accounts. Essentially, it helped users pay from online banking to e-commerce, so it involved complicated verification methods and waiting for bank disbursements, etc.
But the model of the Western Mustang Wallet was completely different. Because it was a bank itself, users needed to transfer their funds to the Western Mustang Bank account first, and then pay through the Western Mustang Wallet.
This way, there were no intermediaries. Western Mustang Wallet could directly transfer money to e-commerce merchants.
And because Western Mustang Wallet deeply understood what the focus of online shopping was, it greatly optimized the entire transaction process. After completing personal data binding, users only needed to enter a password to successfully complete the payment.
Furthermore, after the payment was successful, the funds would be immediately transferred to the merchant's account, and at the same time, Oriental Amazon would start the countdown for shipping, usually within 48 hours. This greatly saved the intermediate time for online shopping and provided an excellent shopping experience for both online buyers and sellers.
In this regard, Western Mustang Wallet completely defeated PayPal. Not to mention that later, with the introduction of the bailout plan, the government-issued relief funds were directly linked to the Western Mustang Wallet, which was almost a direct compulsion for all users to open a Western Mustang Wallet. Then there was no way to compete.
Originally, Wanbaoge could have struggled a bit longer. Bezos had almost persuaded Goldman Sachs to invest another sum of money. However, after this news was announced, even the foolish would understand that it was impossible to defeat Oriental Amazon in the e-commerce field. Therefore, all plans to save Wanbaoge were decisively abandoned, and then there was nothing more.