Overstock Wants to Issue $500 M in Bitcoin-Like Stocks

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Article by Deepak Tiwari
Overstock has filed a prospectus with the SEC (the Securities and Exchange Commission) and asked permission to issue up to $500 million in stock that is controlled by a Bitcoin-like network. The new concept may transform the way the traditional stock market is perceived. However, permission is still awaited from the SEC.
The filing to the SEC reads:
‘We may decide to offer securities as digital securities…the ownership and transfer of which are recorded on a cryptographically-secured distributed ledger system using technology similar to (or the same as) the distributed ledger technology used for trading digital currencies.’
The idea to issue a ‘cryptosecurity’ using Bitcoin-like technology came from Overstock’s free-thinking CEO, Patrick Byrne. He even hired developers and the lawyers to work on this project. However, to execute the idea, Byrne needs permission from the SEC. Byrne admitted that his idea is at the mercy of the establishment, and has appealed to SEC to ‘sprinkle holy water’ on his push towards digital securities.

This post was published at Inside Bitcoins on Apr 29, 2015.