Overstock Venture Chief Expects Market for Blockchain Products in 2019

That's how Jonathan Johnson, president of Overstock.com's Medici Ventures, describes the blockchain-focused venture fund's goals for 2019.

Since 2014, Overstock has invested $175 million in Medici's portfolio companies, a list that includes the security token trading platform tZERO, enterprise tech provider Symbiont, voting app Voatz, lending startup Ripio, data managing platform Factom, and others.

"We need to show people how amazing blockchain is by launching blockchain products. When people can use a product, they are half the way up the learning curve of what blockchain is. And now they actually care how it works."

By way of example, Johnson added: "I don't know if my mother-in-law cares if a voting app uses blockchain. She would say: 'Wait a second, is it a safe and secure way for me to vote? And I don't have to go and wait in line at a junior high school for three hours and wait two weeks until I know who my congresswoman is?'".

The blockchain-based voting app was piloted in two West Virginia counties this year during the primaries in May, when only 13 people used it to vote.

According to the official state data, 144 voters in 30 countries used the app to vote.

Even if those carrying out the voting process are reputable and highly trusted, he claimed, blockchain gives a voter an unprecedented opportunity: to log into the system after the fact and check if their vote was really counted.

After the overseas voters, the next testing wave for Voatz should include disabled voters, then absentee ballot casting, Johnson believes - and then anyone should have an option to vote via the app if they want to.

Despite Medici's drag on Overstock's bottom line - the unit lost $39 million in the first nine months of the year, contributing to a total net loss for the company of $170 million - Johnson said the plan to sell the retail business and focus on blockchain is supported by patient investors who believe in Byrne's vision.

"Our shareholders are interested in the blockchain business, and when you look at our last earnings call, it was slide 23 when we started talking about our retail business," Johnson said.