Amazon has just announced the implementation of its own virtual currency: Coins. Like the currency launched by Facebook, Coins are mainly intended for games. On Amazon’s website, users will have the choice of paying for apps or in-app purchases with Amazon coins or their credit cards.

Obviously, the purpose is to make you spend some money on games or applications and they also allow the developers to enrich their “Free-To-Play”. Indeed, with the introduction of in-app purchases, Amazon has been giving developers more options to generate revenue. It appears to be a huge opportunity to drive traffic, downloads and money.
The apps have to be approved by Amazon, and this currency is usable only in the Amazon app store. Apps for the Kindle Fire will have to give Amazon a 30% share of the revenue earned.

The currency should become active on April 25th. At the moment, Amazon Coins are planned only for the United States, to estimate the success of the operation. Amazon plans to launch the currency by offering tens of millions Coins to the users for free.
Coins will have a fixed exchange rate;  one American Cent will amount to one Amazon Coin. So, it will not be rare to spend hundreds of Coins all at once.