The Malaysian arm of i-Pmart has quietly begun accepting Bitcoin as one of its many payment options.
The e-commerce site specializes in the sale of electronics and accessories. They have separate listings for shipping from China, the U.S. and Malaysia.
Its accepting of Bitcoin was not accompanied by major press releases, tweets or keynote addresses. Bitcoin simply showed up one day with the other payment options.
It appears that the option is only available for shipments from Malaysia, not the U.S. or China.
What's more is that CEO Mart Tang said the company will hold onto the bitcoins instead of exchanging them for fiat. His comments echo those of Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, who recently said that his company preserves a portion of the bitcoins it receives without converting them. Tang believes that bitcoin prices will rise.
Tang himself has become a big fan of Bitcoin. He came across the technology through his entrepreneurial scanning of the web for the latest in tech information and gadgets. He saw other merchants starting to accept Bitcoin and sat down with his development team to see how they can do the same.
The question for i-Pmart now becomes: how do they settle costs of doing business? Eventually, fiat reserves are depleted. Are bitcoins used to pay pay bills and employees? How about income and sales tax? If bitcoins are indeed sold to cover such costs, it becomes pretty similar to not retaining them in the first place.
Little else is known about their initiative, such as if/which 3rd parties are being enlisted for the integration, such as Coinbase or BitPay.
