Overstock to accept payments via more than 40 crytpocurrencies

The upshot is that customers who check out after shopping at Overstocks website will have all sorts of options beyond credit or debit card or bitcoin.

To process all the new currencies, Overstock will rely on ShapeShift for the backend operations. ShapeShift, whose service lets users instantly convert one type of digital currency to another, built an API that allows Overstock to accept any major digital currency and get paid in bitcoin on the backend.

According to Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, the retailers customers spend about USD 50,000 a week in bitcoin and he believes the decision to accept more alt coins could jump-start their adoption as a payment tool and that more people will spend them.