PatrickByrneOverstoc

Thanks. It was even more fun hanging out with the guy for four hours. He is one smaaaart dude. He asked me more intelligent questions about our business than any of the 80 or so VCs with whom I ever dealt. No kidding.

Also, he rolls a mean cigar.

It depends upon what their hesitancy is.

There are business reasons to do it: save on transaction fees, eliminate fraud and charebacks, etc. There may be business reasons not to do it as well, such as the risk of volatility (but this concern can be obviated by trading out of Bitcoin immediately upon receipt, a service that the firms like Bitpay, Coinapult, and Coinbase all offer, I believe).

But if they are pro-freedom, they should want to get behind it on principle alone. Ghandi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

True dat.

Working on it now. Phase II was getting so we could issue credits back in Bitcoin. I think it came live last week. Phase III will be accepting it internationally. Should happen late summer +/-.

I became a strong believer in several ways.

1) As a grad student at Stanford I studied computation thory, which underlies public key encryption, and so when cryptocurrencies came along it was not as magical-sounding to me as it might have been.

2) I am a proponent of the Austrian School of Economics, which, in general, eschews fiat currency in favor of a gold standard. The goal is not really the gold standard, however: the goal is to have a form of money that is intrinsically limited. Bitcoin et. al. accomplishes that.

In addition, cryptocurrencies are SpaceCash (a word I think I just made up) that can be beamed across the galaxy! (Henceforth in my answers I will use "SpaceCash" top refer to all cryptocurrencies.)