Yesterday, Overstock.com became the first big online retailer to accept bitcoin as a form of payment, making good on an announcement last month that it would take the digital currency by the end of 2014. The first purchase, apparently, was a $2,700 patio set. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne says he believes bitcoin will account for just one percent of his company’s sales in 2014.
It’s not the first time a company has attempted mainstream retail sales with digital currency: a service called Bitspend launched last year with hopes allowing users to make bitcoin purchases at any online store by acting as a middleman, but crashed and burned shortly after getting off the ground.
“There’s clearly a huge community of people who support this. Our customer service lines are going nuts with people who appreciate this,” Byrne told Forbes.
For more on bitcoin, see our story on the NYC Bitcoin Center, which aims to be the New York Stock Exchange of digital currency.
