Patrick Byrne sold $20.7 million of his crypto stock to pay back taxes. He added that the selling off is not related to the current crypto valuation.

It is to be recalled that Overstock was the forefront of the industry to accept cryptocurrency in payment.  Overstock was the commercial source that provided investors looking to transact in cryptocurrency to be able to cash out on their crypto by paying with crypto instead of traditional fiat.

In an open letter to the crypto industry he wrote “don’t worry, I’m still in the game.”

Byrne implied that I sold crypto to, “pay Uncle Sam his cut.” “I needed to sell stock during this quarter to meet such other obligations. I am disappointed that I when the deadline arrived for my sales this quarter, the stock had dropped (I sadly note that over the last 180 days the correlation between OSTK’s and Bitcoin’s daily movements has been 85.5%, and again warn people: we don’t have significant holdings of Bitcoin).”

Requested investors not to panic or speculate negatively by considering his decision to sell 10% of his Crypto shares.  He stated that his main intention in the current selling was to reinvest his value capital value related to Overstock and Medici Ventures (of note, Medici Ventures, is a subsidiary of the parent company Overstock, that was purely established to pursue blockchain projects).

In response to the query on whether the selling of his stocks was in response to the ongoing bearish cycle, fully characteristic of the year 2018 trend, he responded saying: “Within a matter of days, I will reinvest most of this money into two co-investments with Overstock and Medici Ventures (thus I am eating a double dose of my own cooking, as months ago I promised you I would).”

Byrne also remarked that the holding of the overstock company with reference to Bitcoin was a very small fraction when compared to their total capital.

Overstock has been providing cryptocurrency holders and investors with a reliable outlet to use their crypto coins beyond speculation at various exchanges in order to make real world purchases.

Regardless of Byrne’s trying to differentiate, it is seen that the stock price of the company is closely traceable to the Bitcoin valuation and the overall health of the crypto markets.  Regardless of the bearish trend, the company has benefitted by the current bearish trend.

The filings at the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Patrick Byrne sold $20.7 million in value of his Overstock share through two lump sums. However, as an after math of his activity, the stock prices fell down by 12 percent after which the trends shows some signs of recovery.