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Overstock.com Begins Offering Bitcoin as Employee Payment Option

Brian Grimmett
A new Bitcoin ATM at the entrance to the Overstock.com office.

The Utah based online retailer Overstock.com is now offering to pay its employees using the electronic currency, Bitcoin.

At the entrance of Overstock.com’s corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City, employee Deric Abel is showing me how simple it is to use the company’s new BitcoinATM.

“It says that it sees $20 on that account, I hit redeem, and it prints out a receipt and out prints $20,” he explains

The ATM allows anyone to buy and sell the unregulated and decentralized electronic currency called Bitcoin. Overstock.com was the first major online retailer to begin accepting the currency as payment. In its first year, Bitcoin sells totaled about $3 million. And while that’s less than one percent of the company’s total revenue, Overstock.com’s director of communications, Judd Bagley, says philosophically, they think Bitcoin is a great idea.

“We’re hoping that by taking these little steps we’re helping to acclimate the general public and get them used to something that we feel is inevitably going to become as common to them as getting dollars from a regular ATM,” Bagley says.

Employees being paid in Bitcoin won’t just be able to buy stuff from Overstock.com either. Microsoft, DISH Network, and Newegg are among several companies that have recently begun accepting Bitcoin as payment. 

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