Overstock.com Plans To Accept Bitcoin 202
SonicSpike writes "Overstock plans to become the first big U.S. online retailer to accept Bitcoin, as Patrick Byrne, the company's libertarian chief executive, warms to the virtual currency as a refuge from government control. Mr Byrne told the Financial Times that Overstock planned to start accepting Bitcoin next year – possibly by the end of the second quarter – a decision that he said was driven mainly by his own political philosophy. 'I think a healthy monetary system at the end of the day isn't an upside down pyramid based on the whim of a government official, but is based on something that they can't control,' Mr Byrne said."
Guesses as to end effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
It will be really interesting if this creates any stability in the value of bitcoin, or if not how pricing will work with something that can fluctuate in value so wildly... will the company convert BTC to cash right away, or will it keep it for a while before conversion (if ever)?
Re:Time to short OSTK (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you're already referencing this, but shorting OSTK makes their CEO very angry [wikipedia.org].
Re:Time to short OSTK (Score:4, Interesting)
It's also weird to oppose it if you're a libertarian, as Byrne claims to be. A "naked short" is just a contract written against a stock. Why should the government interfere to prevent people from writing such contracts? Requiring that short sellers have the underlying security as "cover" is just a government regulation.
Re:Guesses as to end effect? (Score:2, Interesting)
I could spend some time explaining several things to you, mostly things involving international currency exchanges and market volatility concerns, but I suspect that my time would be wasted. Instead, I'll simply note that Overstock.com is not the only large entity considering dealing in BTC, and a lot of smaller companies already do (and in ways that might surprise you), probably more than you suspect. At the end of the day, an old expression applies here: "money talks, bullshit walks." You're standing in a pile of bullshit at the moment, but that's your right and I certainly won't waste any more of my time attempting to reason with you. Cheers.
Re:Guesses as to end effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that a very large retailer like that one takes a while to integrate a new payment system. They might also wish to do the trading themselves to avoid paying the fees to the other operators.
But anyway it does show that that the profile of bitcoin is going up.
Re:The Slashdot of the past... (Score:1, Interesting)
Based on their comments it seems like many of the fanboys are early adopters (and miners, holders) of BTC with dreams of the value skyrocketing. These folks probably see the skeptics as nothing more than jealous because they missed the boat.
And on the flip side of the Casascius, it seems like many of skeptics and nay-sayers are simply sick of hearing about the Bitcoin revolution once or twice a day on Slashdot. These folks probably see the fanboys as engaging in a pump-and-dump scheme -- get folks jazzed to the point where everyone is following the Winklevii lead, pushing a ton of money into BTC futures and causing the per-coin value to skyrocket.
Both sides are making good and bad arguments.