Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne sells all his shares; will invest in gold, silver, and cryptocurrency

Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock, has sold his entire 13.6% stake in the crypto-friendly online retail firm for approximately $90M according to an SEC filing on Wednesday.

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Byrne detailed the reason for selling his shares in his personal blog, DeepCapture. In the blog, Byrne claims " the Deep State’s pets at the SEC " leaked information to JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman regarding Overstock's cryptocurrency dividend.  "They leaked that they were going to Bazoomba our digital dividend. Once that started getting back to me, I realized this: Whenever I have had any question about whether the SEC would or would not do something totally outrageous in order to hurt our company to benefit their clients on Wall Street, they never let me down: they always did the evil thing," Byrne writes.

Byrne also noted that he plans to use the capital generated from his sale to make "investments that are counter-cyclical to the economy." According to Byrne, these investments are gold, silver, and "two flavors of crypto."

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Steven Zheng is a researcher for The Block. He joined The Block in August 2018. Steven graduated from St. John’s University with a degree in economics. Previously, he covered blockchain and crypto at Radicle, a startup analytics firm. He also had brief stints at Cheddar, a media startup, and Bowery Capital, a venture capital firm. He owns bitcoin. Follow Steven on Twitter at: @Dogetoshi