Overtstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) has recently revealed it’s set to sell bitcoin on its website, as it’s going to integrate a biometric wallet and portfolio platform, Bitsy, that’s recently been launched by its blockchain subsidiary Medici Ventures.
According to Forbes, the crypto-friendly online retailer, that’s been accepting BTC payments since 2014, is expecting to sell bitcoin on its website in the first half of 2019 through the crypto wallet. In the future, it’ll also sell other cryptos.
Patrick Byrne, the company’s founder and CEO, has announced Bitsy’s beta launch through a press release, where he noted Overstock plans on fully integrating the wallet into its website by “Q1 or Q2 of next year.”
The announcement comes at a time in which the crypto markets are seemingly starting to recover from a months-long bear market. Speaking to Forbes, the entrepreneur shrugged off “short-term woes” and likened the market’s turbulence to the early days of the internet. He said:
When you had all these dot-com companies crashing, it wasn’t because something was wrong with the internet technology. Coins are going to come and go, but we’re long-term long on blockchain technology.
Per Byrne, there’s a parallel universe emerging in crypto and Overstock, through Bitsy, will be a wormhole between the traditional financial universe and cryptocurrencies, as he’s “going to bring this to our retail customer base.”
A User-Friendly Wallet
The Bitsy wallet is reportedly going to be a “user-friendly bridge” between fiat and cryptocurrencies, and is set to end its beta test phase by the end of this year. It’s set to be so easy to use, it’ll appeal to crypto novices, like Overstock’s core customer segment of middle-aged women, who are likely not tech savvy.
The wallet will also let users control their own coins, instead of seeing them rely on third-party custodians or exchanges to hold their funds for them. Byrne added:
The whole point of crypto is to have a form of money that no authority could control. This is crypto as crypto is meant to be.
Per Steve Hopkins, Medici Venures’ COO, the team behind Bitsy made usability its highest priority, as it “spent a lot of time really understand how people who don’t have a computer science background interact with payment applications.”
Its security measures will include fingerprint scans and facial recognition, to biometrically identify its owner. Forbes further revealed it’ll offer a “patent-pending key recovery mechanism” that will allow users to recover their keys in “extreme circumstances.”
Byrne concluded the Bitsy wallet is “quite special” compared to most wallets currently available in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Overstock has, as CryptoGlobe covered, seen its shares go up and down along with the crypto market.
In August of this year they surged when a Chinese firm revealed it was investing $270 million in its subsidiary tZERO, but then quickly plummeted and erased its gains a few days afterward.
