The History of Overstock, E-commerce Bitcoin Pioneer Facing Unclear Future

Robert Hughes, Senior Vice President of Finance and Risk Management at Overstock resigned from his position to join a Blockchain venture that also involves Byrne.

Byrne has been an advocate for Bitcoin and Blockchain practically since day one, creating a strong reputation for himself in the cryptocurrency community.

Overstock's early days and Byrne's war against Wall StreetByrne founded Overstock.com in 1997 and launched it in May 1999.

"Patrick, I need you to know that you are the most hated man I've known in my entire life. You used to be kind of a golden boy here on Wall Street, but now you can kill people and we wouldn't hate you like we hate you in this town", Byrne quotes a "Well-regarded hedge fund manager in New York", before kicking off his lecture at Bitcoin 2014 conference.

The transition was partly accidental: in December 2013, Byrne mentioned to a journalist that his company might start accepting Bitcoin.

The eccentric businessman went as far as dubbing Bitcoin as the only rescue from the approaching "Zombie apocalypse" and handing out Trump-esque "Make Bitcoin Great Again" red caps to his interviewees.

Such reliance on Bitcoin works both ways: in January 2018, when Bitcoin shedded 50 percent of its value in little under a month, Overstock's company valuation fell 11 percent ending with a value of $1.8 bln thanks to the roughly $200 mln loss.

While Byrne admits that Bitcoin is used in only a fifth of 1 percent of all Overstock sales, he says that he didn't anticipate that share to be significant.

Ravencoin launched rather quietly on January 3, 2018 with a modest 4-page whitepaper and was first mentioned on Bitcointalk.org on Jan. 14 in a post that described its launch as containing "Very little info regarding the future of the project," but that "Since then, several community members have learned that there is an active development team on this coin." According to Bruce Fenton, a Board member of Medici Ventures, Byrne had become interested in Ravencoin since he told him about it "At a diner in Boston".

In 2014 Byrne launched a venture capital firm within Overstock called Medici Ventures that uses company's money to invest in Blockchain startups.