Late last year, newsBTC broke the story that Overstock.com would be accepting Bitcoin beginning in 2014. At the time, CEO Patrick Byrne told me in an interview it was likely to happen in the second half of the year.
It seems like the time has come a lot sooner than we all thought. Bitcoin payments are enabled on the retailer’s website at this very moment.
newsBTC has confirmed that the option to pay in bitcoin is available on the site’s checkout page. By the looks of it, it would appear as if Overstock has teamed up with Coinbase to process the transactions (which they said they will convert immediately to USD if they cannot find a way to hedge their risk).
It’s unclear if this is simply a trial, of if the bitcoin payment option will remain enabled indefinitely, though it should be noted that Overstock has included relevant literature on their help page. In addition, they have a dedicated bitcoin page at overstock.com/bitcoin.
This could be the start of a huge movement in the online retail space.
