Overstock security token market cap crosses USD 50 million

Overstock is a tech-driven online retailer located based in Utah. The company was initially founded in 1997 by Robert Brazell and named D2: Discounts Direct. Two years later, it was sold to Patrick Byrne who renamed it Overstock.com.

In January 2014, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to start accepting Bitcoin (BTC). Within the first 22 hours, the website received over 800 orders worth US$126,000 in bitcoin. This represented 4.33% of the website’s normal income of US$3 million per day.

Around the same time, Byrne launched tZero, an alternative trading system (ATS) regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2016, tZERO provided the technology behind the issuance and trading of Overstock’s Series A Preferred Digital Stock OSTKP, which was touted as the first public digital stock.

In June 2019, Overstock announced the creation of a new Digital Voting Series A-1 Preferred Stock, OSTKO. OSTKO is traded on the PRO Securities ATS, an SEC registered alternative trading system operated by PRO Securities, a tZERO subsidiary powered by tZERO’s security token trading technology.

The majority of existing OSTKP shares were converted into the new OSTKO, with others converted into Series B Digital Preferred stock, OSTBP. The OSTKO are preferred shares and a separate class of stock from Overstock’s common stock, which trades under the symbol "OSTK."

While the OSTKO shares have similar rights to the shares of common stock and participate in any dividend paid on the shares of common stock, the Series A-1 Shares had the possibility of providing a dividend. Overstock recently announced that the dividend would be made available, alongside some key dates and information for shareholders, including how the Dividend will be distributed.

Security token listing platform securitytokencap.io currently lists Overstock preferred (OSTKO) as the largest security token, ranked by market capitalization. The token currently has an overall market capitalization of US$54,646,488 and a 24-hour trading volume of US$19,738.

The OSTKO market cap dwarfs the second and third largest assets listed on the website, tZERO (TZROP) and Spice VC (SPICE). TZROP currently has a market capitalization of US$32,261,315 and a 24-hour trading volume of US$8,450. SPICE has a market capitalization of US$8,126,101 and a 24-hour trading volume of US$19.

In its recent Q1 2020 earnings call, Overstack said that it plans to list regular stocks on tZERO. The tZERO’s customer base has increased by 40% during the past quarter and 6,404 new user accounts became active on the trading platform, as of the last month of the quarter.

Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) has shown strong growth when compared to the rest of the US equity market. It rose ~46% in May, compared to a 4.5% increase in the S&P 500 stock index.

Analysts suggest that this rise has been driven by a rise in demand for products in Overstock’s e-commerce home supplies retail business. This rise has been attributed to a shift in consumer spending towards online orders amid COVID 19 social distancing restrictions.

On June 10, 2020, from 4 pm to 6 pm Eastern Time, Overstock will host a Virtual Investor Event. The event will include a discussion and Q&A session with members of the company’s executive leadership team. Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson says it will give the company’s shareholders and the investment community a better understanding of how Overstock functions.