How Overstock deals with bitcoin’s wild price swings

[alyssa85]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/overstock-deals-bitcoins-wild-price-swings-145542616.html

Bitcoin has always had a long history of volatility and is currently on a big upswing. For much of January, the cryptocurrency sat at under $1,000. Now, a single bitcoin is worth more than $4,610.

This volatility may be great for bitcoin investors, but the growth has hindered bitcoin’s effectiveness as a currency, as people are reluctant to spend or transact during a surge. For many, at the moment, bitcoin is largely a hedging tool or an investment.

For companies that take bitcoin as a form of payment, however, the volatility poses another challenge: dealing with accepting a currency that may change in value significantly on a daily basis. Businesses are used to dealing with fluctuating currencies, but nothing like the 385% increases that bitcoin has seen over the past few months.

In 2014 Overstock (OSTK) was the first major retailer to accept bitcoin, becoming the first billion-dollar business to take the leap. The company’s strategy was to pocket 10% of a sale in bitcoin and convert the rest into U.S. dollars. To facilitate transactions, Overstock used Coinbase’s exchange to convert digital currency in real-time.

But during the surge this year, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne changed the online retailer’s policy in two major ways.
Overstock’s new policy: keep half

“What we do now is 50% gets turned into U.S. dollars and 50% gets held as bitcoin,” Byrne told Yahoo Finance. “So we’re accumulating that bitcoin.”

In the first week of August, Overstock announced it would be accepting nearly all major cryptocurrencies by partnering with ShapeShift, another exchange. However, alternate cryptocurrencies that the company will retain on its books will be converted into bitcoin.

Beyond holding, Byrne said the company doesn’t use any swaps or forwards or any other fancy financial instruments to hedge Overstock’s bitcoin investments.

I expect he's bitterly regretting not holding onto the bitcoins Overstock got in 2014 when the price was about $300.

[1714954445]

1714954445

[iamTom123]

I expect he's bitterly regretting not holding onto the bitcoins Overstock got in 2014 when the price was about $300.

Well, we all have regrets especially with the advent of Bitcoin and its surge of value lately. Had we fully known what will be and can be then it would have been an easy choice to make. Predicting and projecting Bitcoin is more of an art rather than a science. We just do not know exactly how things would play out. Right now, Bitcoin is surging ahead into the $5,000 territory but there is a possibility of corrections any day from now.

[Coffee135]

I don't care how much it will cost bitcoin. I'm doing my job now and get a good salary. Even if the bitcoin will fall or cease to rise in price I will not turn away from bitcoin. I'm just sorry it's too late joined the bitcoin community.

[eternalgloom]

Something like this is actually really good for pushing the price even more upwards.
They're not selling all of their Bitcoin revenue immediately anymore, so these coins don't get dumped on exchanges.

It would be interesting to see some actual numbers though, like how many payments are made with Bitcoin every month for example.