14 May 2014 / NY1 – Bitcoin burning a hole in your virtual wallet? Turns out you can spend it in more places than you might think. NY1’s Tara Lynn Wagner filed the following report.
“September of last year, we had about 10,000 merchants. Now we’ve got 30,000 so we’ve tripled in seven months,” says Tony Gallippi, CEO and co-founder of BitPay.
A bakery in Durham, North Carolina accepts bitcoin. So does Bootleg Mannings, a Staten Island bar and grill.
“I just thought it would be really cool if we could get people in here using bitcoins,” says Kelly Manning, owner of Bootleg Mannings.
Perhaps one of the biggest players to enter the mix, however, is Overstock.com.
“The first day when we launched it, about 2.5% of our sales revenue was in bitcoin,” says Jonathan Johnson, Chairman of the Board at Overstock.com.
The discount online retailer started accepting the digital currency in early-January. They hit the million dollar mark eight weeks later — with a bulk of that money coming from first time customers.
“By the end of the year, we’ll probably do $10 or $15 million in bitcoin revenue” Johnson says.
Proponents say bitcoin can help boost a business’ bottom line in a number of ways.
“There’s really no disadvantage to accepting it. They don’t get charged the credit card fees. They also get access to this new economy. They don’t have any fraud risks,” says Paul Puey, CEO and Co-Founder of AirBitz, a bitcoin business directory and wallet….. Read more
