Overstock.com Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne told the Business Insider that their Bitcoin sales per day range anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000. The retailer said last week that they already seen more than $1 million in Bitcoin purchases so far since they started to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment on January 9. Overstock worked with Bitcoin exchange platform Coinbase to facilitate Bitcoin transactions.
Byrne told the Business Insider, "There was a huge surge [in Bitcoin spending] the first day, with people showing support. It's since dropped to $20k to $30k per day, but it's gradually increasing from there. It's going well."
A TechCrunch report tried to gauge if at this amount, accepting Bitcoin had been good for Overstock's bottom line. If the quarterly average revenue of Overstock is pegged at $326 million or $3.6 million per day and if Overstock records $30,000 in Bitcoin transactions daily then the digital currency spending only accounts for 0.83% of the retailer's per day revenue, the report said.
However, this should not been seen as a failure on the part of Overstock.com. While the total Bitcoin currently in circulation is about $7.9 billion, ownership is concentrated on only a few people, with less than a thousand people owning about half of the digital currency. Alex Wilhelm of TechCrunch reported, "That wealth concentration means that the number of people who have enough Bitcoin to purchase items at Overstock.com is smaller than you might expect. That said, the larger Bitcoin network - so far as I can tell - is growing daily. So, expect to see Overstock.com move six figures a day in Bitcoin sales by the holiday season."
Using Bitcoins to pay for purchases at Overstock carries advantages compared to using plastic. Unlike credit cards, Bitcoins don't have credit card fees or chargebacks. The risk of fraud is also eliminated. Since Overstock immediately converts the digital currency to US dollars, issues regarding to frequent price swings of the Bitcoin are also removed, Business Insider reported.
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