US-based etailer Overstock.com plans to begin selling goods in exchange for virtual currency Bitcoin from next year, according to chief executive Patrick Byrne.
The retailer has become the biggest ecommerce firm to open up their cash registers to the currency after other digital firms such as user-generated news site Reddit, online dating site OkCupid, gaming console start-up Ouya and space-flight travel firm Virgin Galactic all agreed to begin dealing in the currency.
Byrne told newspapers including the Financial Times and that the company will accept Bitcoin as soon as April and, if not, in the second half of next year at the latest.
He told the LA Times: 'I think we'll pick up… the market share of the people who’d prefer to pay in Bitcoin, with an honest currency.'
He described his decision as 'also philosophical, part and parcel with my belief in a limited government - that if you want a limited government you can't give it power to expand the monetary base.'
Byrne told the FT that he was an adherent of the Austrian School of economics which proposes that fiat currencies, created by central banks, would destabilise the global economy.
But he also said he plans to exchange the currency back to US dollars on a daily basis - protecting his firm from the violent fluctuations in it value.
One website described Bitcoin as having an 'infamous volatility' - with prices veering from $500 to $1,200 this month alone - which means those holding it may only be doing so for its value alone and that companies accepting it may be faced with holding currency that could fall sharply in value within a single day.
Byrne told the Financial Times: 'I think a healthy monetary system at the end of the day isn't an upside down pyramid based on the whim of a government official but is based on something that they can't control.'
The FT said there are currently 12.15 million Bitcoins in circulation and, when there are 21 million, no more will be created.
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