Overstock.com employees have a new option when it comes to their paychecks: bitcoin.
The online discount retailer announced Friday that it will give employees the option of being paid in the digital currency — a sign of continuing support for bitcoin from Overstock. Almost exactly a year ago, the company announced it would be accepting bitcoin as a form of payment on its website, and in the release today Overstock said more than $3 million worth of Bitcoin purchases have been made to date.
Allowing employees to receive their salaries in bitcoin will be a step toward making the currency more mainstream, said CEO Patrick Byrne. In fact, the company is taking another step: it’s installing a bitcoin ATM in its Salt Lake City, Utah, headquarters.
“Moving cryptocurrencies out of the realm of geeks and into the realm of the rest of us requires making changes at all levels of the financial ecosystem,” Byrne said in a release. “An important part of this effort is making digital money ATM accessible.”
The ATM will be available to the public too, allowing users to convert U.S. Dollars into bitcoin, and vice-versa. It will be open 24 hours a day.
Bitcoin is becoming increasingly popular for retailers, with major companies such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Coins2Day publisher Time Inc. (TIME) announcing in recent months that they’ll be accepting the cryptocurrency.
This is a far cry from the early days of the bitcoin craze, when the currency was largely linked with the now-shut down “Silk Road,” which was allegedly used to sell drugs and other illicit items.