Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne has reportedly sold all of his stake in the company in order to go deep into cryptocurrency and, again – reportedly – “fight the deep state.”
You read that right. The crypto advocate, millionaire, and outlandish CEO says that part of his move has everything to do with bringing justice to bad guys in the evil web of power.
All In On Crypto and Precious Metals
Byrne has promised to have liquidated all of his Overstock investment, with an eye toward crypto and precious metals investments, within the week.
The same post expresses a deep resentment for certain elements of the government, and succinctly expresses the rogue executive’s libertarian view of the world.
“After paying tens of millions in taxes (after all, “We didn’t build that,” right?) by Friday the rest will be in investments that are counter-cyclical to the economy: Gold, silver, and two flavors of crypto. The gold and silver are stored outside of the United States, in Switzerland, and within two weeks, will be scattered in other locations that are even more outside of the reach of the Deep State, but are places that are safe for me. The crypto is stored in the place where all crypto is stored: in mathematical mist, behind long keys held only in the memory of someone who is quite good at storing such things in memory (with paper backups in the hands of a priest I met 35 years ago who never sits foot in the West).”
Thwarting The Deep State
Byrne is further convinced that his moves will make him less vulnerable to elements of the “deep state,” saying:
“The other thing accomplished by the investment moves I described above is that my ammunition gets moved outside acts of retaliation from the Deep State. That is important because, in fact, I am now going to shellac them. Actually, “shellac” is too weak a word for what I intend to do to the Deep State. Sit back and enjoy the show.”
Byrne has long been a proponent of cryptocurrency, and his company, Overstock, was among the first major corporations to accept it as a form of payment.
Overstock eventually invested in a company called Medici Ventures, which does the majority of the company’s blockchain work at this point. Medici, for example, handles land titles and other services for certain governments.
The ex-CEO ends the post by noting that he has also made another, unrelated investment recently, that he “suspects” we may hear of eventually. However, he says, it’s got nothing to do with Overstock or blockchain technology, so he didn’t bother to write on it.
