Overstock banks on Bitcoin; will other retailers follow?

As uncertainty continues to swirl around Bitcoin and its role in the future of payments, Overstock.com is rushing full-speed ahead in embracing the digital currency.

The online retailer has installed a Bitcoin ATM at its corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City. The ATM is accessible 24 hours a day and allows the public to convert U.S. dollars to Bitcoin, and Bitcoin to U.S. dollars.

"Moving cryptocurrencies out of the realm of geeks and into the realm of the rest of us requires makingchanges at all levels of the financial ecosystem," said Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne. "An important part of this effort is making digital money ATM accessible."

Overstock.com began accepting Bitcoin as a purchase payment option on Jan. 9, 2014.

In the year since the move, customers have made $3 million in Bitcoin purchases onsite. Other adopters have followed suit.

Byrne said the addition of the ATM is, in part, a commemoration of the success of the company's cryptocurrency initiative. Byrne noted that, as a further indication of the company's commitment to the new technology, Overstock.com is preparing to offer employees the option of being paid in Bitcoin, and the presence of an ATM on site makes that option more viable.

Based on analysis of the company's first year of sales paid for with Bitcoin, accounting for population, Overstock.com's home state of Utah is the state with the second highest adoption of Bitcoin in the nation. New Hampshire ranks first.