Overstock To Accept Bitcoin

Cartels be like "Turn this shit into BTC"
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Seems like bitcoin is just stuck in a loop right now. Regulators are waiting to see what happens once more customers start adopting it before deciding on regulation. Customers are waiting for more merchants to adopt it before spending their time buying it. Merchants are waiting for regulators to decide what's going on. Nobody wants to pull the trigger and take the risk of just jumping in first.
 
Overstock.com Partners With Coinbase And Starts Accepting Bitcoins As Payment | TechCrunch

Overstock.com struck a deal with Coinbase, a sort of PayPal for Bitcoin, to handle the processing. Just today, Overstock.com and Coinbase flipped the switch, marking a milestone in Bitcoin history. Overstock.com just became the largest online retailer to accept the digital currency.


The company CEO Patrick Byrne revealed his intentions to accept the digital currency in late 2013. According to Wired, Byrne felt he had tipped his hand and rushed to start accepting Bitcoin before any of his competitors.
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There are also rumors of Newegg and one other big retailer (forgot name) considering accepting bitcoin payments very soon
 
retailers are probably accepting it, expecting it to continue to climb. They would probably take gold coins too if it were easy to transact specific amounts
 
Technically, Overstock isn't accepting bitcoin. If you want to buy something on overstock with bitcoin, you have to pay Coinbase, which then immediately pays Overstock in USD. This is a small but important point to keep in mind.

In the end though, everyone involved wins - Overstock comes off looking progressive and gets great press, with very little risk (since it doesn't actually touch bitcoin). Coinbase gets a major stamp of approval from a renowned online retailer, thereby opening the doors for more partnerships with more online retailers. Buyers get more choices when it comes to payment.
 
As a bit of an aside, does anyone know of a way to take subscription payments with bitcoin? I've been getting paypal subscription payments and am starting to get a sore bum from the ridiculous spreads those guys take.
 
All it's going is moving money from fiat to bitcoin and back to fiat. Like a modern money laundering scheme.
 
Or it's like this: I have some greenbacks, but for whatever reason they are not good enough so I go to a flea market and exchange my otherwise perfectly useful money for special buttons (they have no intrinsic value. they are cheap plastic buttons but only a few million were made). Then there is another merchant that is selling useful stuff for buttons but since he has no use for buttons he converts them back into dollars or he can hang onto the buttons in the hope they will have more extrinsic value later. The only reason why he's accepting buttons as a payment is because for some reason a mass of people with the help of the media have convinced themselves that these buttons are worth more than the cheap plastic they are created with, so he should get in while the getting is good. But he will be dumping these worthless buttons at the first opportunity because neither his employees, merchants, affiliates or shareholders recognize buttons as holding value.
 
Pleb said:
As a bit of an aside, does anyone know of a way to take subscription payments with bitcoin? I've been getting paypal subscription payments and am starting to get a sore bum from the ridiculous spreads those guys take.
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Bitcoin acts exactly like cash. Without a 3rd party it's impossible.

With Coinbase.com, you can do reoccurring billing, but the customer must have a coinbase wallet for the money to be pulled from. They've got a sweet API though, it's easy to set up.


bitfiend said:
All it's going is moving money from fiat to bitcoin and back to fiat.
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That's up to them however. At the drop of a hat they can log into Bitpay and click a button that lets them not convert it, or convert X% of it on the fly... So as they will no doubt be watching the price of bitcoin closely now, it would be silly to think that they don't start holding onto some coin, as it's far more profitable that way.


bitfiend said:
The only reason why he's accepting buttons as a payment is because for some reason a mass of people with the help of the media have convinced themselves that these buttons are worth more than the cheap plastic they are created with...
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Lol! So you see no need for cash on the internet?

History has recorded very well the words of those fools like Paul Krugman that said we'd have no need for the internet and it'd just drift off into obscurity. Quotes like yours put you right beside him in the official record.
 
lukep said:
That's up to them however. At the drop of a hat they can log into Bitpay and click a button that lets them not convert it, or convert X% of it on the fly... So as they will no doubt be watching the price of bitcoin closely now, it would be silly to think that they don't start holding onto some coin, as it's far more profitable that way.
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They're not in the Bitcoin speculation business. They won't be holding any of their coins (at least so long as they stay so volatile).
 
mituozo said:
They're not in the Bitcoin speculation business. They won't be holding any of their coins (at least so long as they stay so volatile).
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CEO actually said the reason they don't hold them now is because they can't spend them with their merchants. He said it's the "chicken and the egg problem".

Overstock is the first to market accepting bitcoin which forces them to exchange for fiat. Once bitcoin is more wide spread and adopted by other businesses they (Overstock) will be able to hold and spend bitcoin for services they use.
 
redgsr said:
CEO actually said the reason they don't hold them now is because they can't spend them with their merchants. He said it's the "chicken and the egg problem".

Overstock is the first to market accepting bitcoin which forces them to exchange for fiat. Once bitcoin is more wide spread and adopted by other businesses they (Overstock) will be able to hold and spend bitcoin for services they use.
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What the CEO said is irrelevant. No reasonable business will hold onto a currency that fluctuates wildly in value week-to-week, unless they're in the business of trading said currency.

My business sells stuff in $USD but as soon as I get paid I exchange it for GBP to eliminate currency risk.

It's no different with Bitcoin, and Bitcoin is vastly more volatile. It doesn't make sense for businesses to hold/store significant quantities of bitcoin unless it's their standard currency, or that currency trading/investing is part of their business.

Bitcoin is a long way from being "the standard" of currency for any country/business outside of the black market trades.
 
The first day revenues were certainly impressive.

But I want to see how much the falls on day 2, day 10, or day 100 once the novelty wears off and people forget about the press reports.
 
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