While Bitcoin has been used for years as legal tender in local shops around the U.S. and overseas, Overstock.com is the first major retail sales company to do so.
In case you are wondering what a Bitcoin is, or more correctly what the Bitcoin service is, here is an explanation from Bitcoin.org:
"Bitcoin is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital money. It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. From a user perspective, Bitcoin is pretty much like cash for the Internet. Bitcoin can also be seen as the most prominent triple entry bookkeeping system in existence."
If that was just not clear enough, here is a better visual representation: http://bitcoin.org/en/how-it-works
"Since December, Overstock’s free-thinking CEO and chairman, Patrick Byrne, has been telling anyone who would listen that his company would adopt bitcoin sometime in the next six months." -WIRED
Overstock.com's CEO Patrick Byrne stated "I felt I had tipped my hand" and "I didn't want someone else to beat us."
So today they officially launched the Bitcoin services of their website.
What does this mean for us? Bitcoin is an attempt to make money a global community controlled property. This is a milestone. If Bitcoin succeeds, banks could cease to exist the way they do today.
The money would be centralized, anyone could theoretically open a bank with services then, whether they had the backing of big money or not.
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