Richard Sherman accepts bitcoin, even if Amazon doesn’t
An industry shakeout is needed to help the controversial currency, accepted to buy Richard Sherman T-shirts and grilled cheese sandwiches, gain wider use.
You can’t use bitcoin at Amazon.com. But there are a handful of places Seattleites can spend the crypto-currency.
Take, for example, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s online store. There, the Legion of Boom member sells T-shirts with his likeness next to the words “Don’t you ever talk about me,” a quote that memorializes his now-famous post-NFC Championship game rant. You can pick up the shirt for $29.99, using credit cards, PayPal or bitcoin.
Sherman’s store — at www.richardsherman25.com — started taking bitcoin in December and has received 20 to 30 orders a month using the currency, according to Sherman’s agent, Jamie Fritz.
Sherman announced plans to accept bitcoin in a January Facebook post, calling it “the currency of the future.” Fritz said Sherman was simply trying to make purchasing products easier.
“The decision was based on supporting the fan-base choices to transact via the latest medium — not unlike PayPal or traditional credit cards,” Fritz said.
In its five-year life, bitcoin has largely been collected and traded by technologists intrigued by the potential for digital currency, libertarians keen to support a currency without government backing, and criminals eager to purchase contraband anonymously.
The future of the controversial and widely misunderstood currency has been questioned with the apparent collapse of the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. The exchange, once the biggest in the bitcoin universe, halted trading as reports surfaced that more than 744,000 bitcoins — worth around $380 million, or roughly 6 percent of the world’s bitcoins — had been stolen.
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You can’t use bitcoin at Amazon.com. But there are a handful of places Seattleites can spend the crypto-currency.
Take, for example, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s online store. There, the Legion of Boom member sells T-shirts with his likeness next to the words “Don’t you ever talk about me,” a quote that memorializes his now-famous post-NFC Championship game rant. You can pick up the shirt for $29.99, using credit cards, PayPal or bitcoin.
Sherman’s store — at www.richardsherman25.com — started taking bitcoin in December and has received 20 to 30 orders a month using the currency, according to Sherman’s agent, Jamie Fritz.
Sherman announced plans to accept bitcoin in a January Facebook post, calling it “the currency of the future.” Fritz said Sherman was simply trying to make purchasing products easier.
“The decision was based on supporting the fan-base choices to transact via the latest medium — not unlike PayPal or traditional credit cards,” Fritz said.
In its five-year life, bitcoin has largely been collected and traded by technologists intrigued by the potential for digital currency, libertarians keen to support a currency without government backing, and criminals eager to purchase contraband anonymously.
The future of the controversial and widely misunderstood currency has been questioned with the apparent collapse of the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. The exchange, once the biggest in the bitcoin universe, halted trading as reports surfaced that more than 744,000 bitcoins — worth around $380 million, or roughly 6 percent of the world’s bitcoins — had been stolen.
Continued...
