Overstock Invests $4 Million in Barbados Bitcoin Startup
Caribbean digital currency exchange Bitt has received $4m in new funding from online retailer Overstock.com. The deal, announced today, comes after Bitt's February launch of a blockchain-backed digital version of the Barbados dollar. The startup raised $1.5m in seed funding last March from local VC firm Avatar Capital. Bitt CEO Gabriel Abed told CoinDesk that the deal originated at the Satoshi Roundtable, an invite-only industry gathering held in late February. The funds will be used to expand the company’s team beyond Barbados. Abed explained: "We’ll be taking what we’ve done in....
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Overstock revealed Friday it invested $4 million into a blockchain-forward financial technology firm in the Caribbean. The announcement, made in Barbados and attended by principals from the island’s company Bitt and Overstock, enters in a big move by Overstock into the space. It’s involvement had largely been focused on innovation through its t0 project. “A major impediment to economic advancement around the world is the fact that the vast majority of humans are unbanked,” Overstock Chief Executive Patrick Byrne said. “Yet mobile penetration in some countries exceeds 100 percent. Bitt has....
E-tail giant Overstock has invested in a Belgium-based blockchain startup. The seed investment in SettleMint, the amount of which was not disclosed, was made by Medici Ventures, a venture arm of Overstock that is focused on its blockchain-based trading platform initiative. In April, Overstock invested $4m in Caribbean digital currency exchange Bitt, and the firm has stakes in other companies like PeerNova and Identity Mind as part of its crypto-exchange project. According to the e-tailer, the investment in SettleMint is aimed, in part, at shoring up the voting capabilities for its tø....
Overstock announced a strategic investment in Bitt, a Caribbean-based fintech company whose goal is to persuade Caribbean island nations to adopt digital national currencies. The investment was announced at a media conference in Barbados hosted by Avatar Capital, which invested in Bitt, and attended by representatives from both Bitt and Overstock. Politicians and dignitaries from various Caribbean nations attended. “A major impediment to economic advancement around the world is the fact that the vast majority of humans are unbanked,” said Overstock CEO Patrick M. Byrne. “Yet mobile....
US retail giant Overstock has invested in blockchain technology specialist Peernova as part of its second tranche of Series A financing. Formed through a merger between cloud mining contract provider CloudHashing and ASIC hardware designer HighBitcoin in early 2014, Peernova raised $8.6m in funding last December as it sought to accelerate its shift away from mining. In statements, general manager of Overstock's Cryptocurrencies Group Judd Bagley framed Overstock's first investment in a bitcoin industry firm as a vote of confidence in the decentralized ledger-based technologies Peernova is....
On the heels of the recent Dish Network announcement to begin accepting bitcoin payments, we saw the same clueless chorus of naysayers and payment newbies come out claiming that Dish doesn't really accept bitcoin because they actually end up with US dollars. It would be just as ridiculous to say that a hotel in Barbados doesn't accept US dollars because, after the VISA credit card transaction, the hotel ends up with Barbados dollars. Dish Network selected bitcoin payment processor Coinbase to manage the foreign exchange conversion risk in the same way that other international merchants....