Friday, July 25, 2014

Bitcoin with Overstock.com, Dell, what's next?

You would think that computer manufacturers would be among the first to accept bitcoins as currency for payment. Strangely, many are still dragging their feet. I was surprised that System76 did not yet since they are "renegade" for selling only computers running Linux.
Now that Dell has accepted it, I expect an acceleration. Overstock has demonstrated a large amount of sales in BTC with a significant corresponding saving in credit card fees. If sells pick up in any way by Dell, they will brag about it which will lead the struggling competition to jump on the Bitcoin gravy train.
So just in a few months:

CheapAir.com, which recently said it tops $1.5 Million in total bitcoin sales
Overstock.com 
DISH
Newegg.com
Expedia
Dell.com

But here is what I find interesting from Overstock.com. They will provide special deal to vendors who will be paid in bitcoins.
http://newsbtc.com/2014/07/03/overstock-ceo-aims-give-special-deals-vendors-wholl-accept-bitcoin/

If some vendors do agree to this, it has the immediate implication that Overstock will not sell all of their bitcoins they get when they sell products. From the initial press release back in January, Overstock said they will avoid currency variation by converting all bitcoins earned to US dollar. This was expected since their vendors and employees are paid in US dollar and so are the dividends to investors. But if some vendors are now accepting BTC, it would make sense for Overstock to keep some BTC in reserve so that they can pay their vendors. Could this cascade to the vendors of vendors. Who knows. But did Overstock.com set a trend and other follows? One sure thing, the more people get aware of its ease of use and cheaper transfer cost, the more interesting things will get.

We are in the early stage of a transformation, and it feels so much like the 1990s. For those youngsters, I've got news for you, the mainstream media was just as clueless about the Internet back then. I remember when I had to explain email to a friend and I had to answer this question: "What's this "@" thing?"





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