Retail Giant Overstock Reports Losses, Says Blockchain Business Strong

Retail giant Overstock has released its Q2 2019 financial results, revealing a 23% decrease in revenue and a 19% loss in gross profit.

In a shareholder announcement published on Aug. 8, Overstock stated that its blockchain subsidiary firm, tZERO, is progressing as planned, with a focus on six key areas — notably security tokens.

No pain no gain

While the fresh results point to a decrease by most metrics, Overstock has returned to a positive adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization for the first time since Q2 2017. Moreover, gross margin has seen a 79 basis point increase over the preceding quarter, with sales and marketing expenses down 63% over the same time frame.

The results reveal that tZERO posted an almost $10 million pre-tax loss and also impacted its parent firm’s general and administrative (G&A) expenses:

“G&A expenses totaled $32.0 million and $31.4 million in Q2 2019 and 2018, respectively, a 2% increase [...] The increase was primarily due to a $6.0 million decrease in cryptocurrency gains from our Q2 2018 sale of cryptocurrency received during the tZERO security token offering, with no similar activity in Q2 2019.”

In its breakdown of its various business segments, Overstock reveals that for Q2 2019, tZERO accounted for just over $4.1 million of its roughly $373 million net revenue.

A trailblazer in retail crypto adoption

According to the announcement, Overstock was the first major retailer to accept cryptocurrency back in 2014 — founding its blockchain-focused commerce subsidiary Medici Ventures that same year.

Just yesterday, Cointelegraph reported that tZERO is planning to allow the public to trade its security tokens within a matter of days and expects as many as 50,000 new investors among its existing Overstock shareholders to begin trading their security tokens.

While tZERO has been offering token trading since January of this year, it has until now only been available for accredited investors via a digital securities brokerage account at Dinosaur Financial Group.

The firm had completed its security token offering in August 2018, raising $134 million from over 1,000 global investors. In March of this year, it drew scrutiny from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, sparking a price drop in Overstock shares.

Earlier his month, tZERO was awarded a patent for a solution that can anchor traditional trades and exchanges to public blockchains.