Overstock.com, famous for being one of the first major retailers to accept bitcoin in 2014, has announced that it will form a digital token exchange that will be the first to comply with SEC and FINRA guidelines. According to the company, there is a pipeline of $2 billion in digital assets sold through ICOs waiting to start trading on the platform.
“It’s a cleaner, more efficient, less expensive market,” Byrne said Tuesday at tZero’s offices in New York. “It will start with ICOs, but all the forces of economics will drive blue-chip issuers to this, and eventually we’ll see the first McDonalds or GM tokens. This isn’t going to stay a novelty.” Shares of Overstock, which has been accepting cryptocurrency payments since 2014, surged as much as 13 percent to $26.50, the highest since December 2014. Blockchain-based digital tokens have raised more than $2 billion, according to Coin Desk, surpassing venture capital funding, while the cryptocurrency market has ballooned to $130 billion, including bitcoin.