The UpTake: 2015 is shaping up to be the year bitcoin got sophisticated, thanks to a growing number of financial tools built using the decentralized ledger that underlies the currency.
The founder of Overstock.com today purchased a $500,000 cryptobond from his own company’s TØ.com cryptosecurity offering, first issued last week. The move is part of a growing trend of non-currency applications of the technology behind bitcoin.
“It’s not exactly Jonas Salk injecting himself with his polio vaccine, but I wanted to own the first cryptosecurity ever issued,” said PatrickByrne, who is also the company’s CEO, in a statement. “I intend to demonstrate my belief not just in Overstock, but in the TØ.com platform that we built and, indeed, in the cryptorevolution itself.”
On Friday, Overstock.com (Nasdaq: OSTK) claimed that its newly launched TØ.com platform was the first to offer qualified institutional buyers a digital corporate bond which will trade on and be tracked by bitcoin’s blockchain.
The TØ.com technology takes its name from the fact that trades on the system settle on the same day, as opposed to three days later as is the norm on Wall Street. The technology uses the Open Assets protocol hosted on GitHub, which gives users the ability to “color” bitcoins, or encode other information—such as a bond or deed—into the currency.
Future applications of the blockchain technology could include incentivized social software, international microfinance, and self-executing living wills. A video-game called Voxelnauts that will let users spend video-game currency on real-world products, as well as protect digital inventions with deeds, is currently being developed.
According to a company statement, a circular informing investors of the TØ.com cryptobond offering was distributed on June 1, 2015. The offering is being made to qualified institutional buyers that meet the definition of “accredited investor” in compliance with Rule 506(c) of Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.
Working with other qualified institutional buyers, the company intends to sell a total of $25 million in digital bonds to trade on bitcoin’s blockchain, a cryptographically-protected distributed ledger.
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To read the bitcoin white paper, visit: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
