Overstock.com’s CEO denied reports the company suffered any significant losses because of a glitch in cryptocurrency systems, and said that, despite the media coverage, he still believes Bitcoin holds a lot of potential for the company.
“Right now we’re doing a tZero ICO raising $300 million...People are telling me that’s a business they think has a 3 billion or 4 billion value,” Patrick Byrne told Cheddar Friday.
“I literally have people on Wall St. saying, if I pull off the tZero ICO, and then over two years we do what we think we can do, they say that’s a $40 billion enterprise. People have no idea, yet how much of the financial system we intend to augment.”
Reports emerged earlier this week that a bug created a big opportunity for arbitrage, allowing customers to purchase items with Bitcoin Cash, which trades at roughly $2,500, and return them in exchange for Bitcoin, priced at more than $13,000.
Byrne said the issue was caused by the overwhelming trade volume at payment partner Coinbase. He claims the mix-up, which lasted milliseconds, did not result in any material losses.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/overstock-ceo-responds-to-bitcoin-mix-up).
Meta wants creators to make money from the metaverse, but it's going to take a large chunk of the cut. The tech giant is planning to keep nearly 50% of all digital asset sales within Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality platform that's considered an integral part of the company's unfolding metaverse. Rolf Illenberger, Co-founder and Managing Director of VRdirect, joined Cheddar to discuss why Meta is taking heat for this move, and what it could be doing as an alternative to help support creators, small businesses, and consumers.
Grayscale recently launched its Future of Finance ETF ($GFOF) for investors to benefit from innovative businesses that it sees as critical to building the digital economy. CEO Michael Sonnenshein joined Cheddar to discuss the fund, companies making the most impact, and ways in which investors can expand holdings in the digital economy. “When we think about how investors should be building out their portfolios, we felt that there was a really important opportunity to also provide investors with access to the broadly defined digital economy, really, that confluence between technology and finance," he said.
Al Root, Senior Writer at Barron's, discusses possible scenarios if a Twitter buyout deal goes through and what a takeover means for the future of the social media platform.
Gas prices took up a big share of consumer spending in March. Retail sales climbed 0.5% from the previous month as Americans are forced to spend more money on food, gasoline, and other necessities. Kayla Bruun, Economic Analyst at Morning Consult, breaks down her outlook on consumer spending as prices continue to rise.
