Byrne Sells Overstock Stake to Buy Crypto and Battle 'Deep State'

Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock who resigned abruptly in August, has dumped his 13 percent stake in the e-commerce company he founded 20 years ago to buy cryptocurrency and precious metals, he announced late yesterday.

A longtime proponent of cryptocurrency - Overstock was one of the first companies to accept crypto payments, launched the tZERO security token trading platform and acquired the company behind Ravencoin - Byrne was ahead of the curve, but perhaps too much so, as the external pressures against him compelled his resignation from the company last month.

Byrne's final gambit - a crypto dividend approved in July - worked to lift Overstock's share price to a 52-week high last week, but the value of the shares fell by half as his plan unraveled.

Yesterday, after the market closed, Byrne filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that he had sold 4.7 million Overstock shares worth nearly $100 million.

Byrne's blog post followed a statement from Overstock, announcing a halt to the crypto dividend policy after a New York Post report detailed the behind-the-scenes maneuvering - due to what Byrne described in his post as a leak from "The Deep State's pets at the SEC.".

Overstock told the SEC in the filing that a new crypto dividend would be announced shortly that would exclude the long holding period and other restrictions to allow the digital rights to be traded freely and immediately.

The "Leak" to the New York Post revealed that the crypto dividend was conceived by Byrne as a means to squeeze Overstock's short sellers, who he knew would reject its complications and wind-up their positions.

Byrne said that he would buy Overstock shares again if the company were to bottom out in a coming economic crash, while his move into crypto assets would grow his assets under those conditions.

Byrne said that Warren Buffet had advised him to come clean and leave his job to prevent Overstock from being further enmeshed in a spy-versus-spy battle that had nothing to due with the online furniture business.

Or crypto currencies, for that matter, although Byrne believes his enemies were motivated to target him because of his crypto evangelism.