On Tuesday afternoon, Overstock—one of the world's largest online retailers, with $1.3 billion a year in sales—unveiled a webpage that explores how a public company could issue a "cryptosecurity" to potential investors. In an echo of the bitcoin digital currency, this would be a stock that's controlled by cryptographic algorithms running across a network of computers owned by people and companies spread across the globe.

In other words, all stock trades would be governed by tools in the hands of the general public rather than by a traditional stock exchange, such as the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange, and these trades would be mathematically verified and recorded in an online ledger that anyone can view at anytime—something that, Byrne believes, could eliminate some serious flaws in the world of high-stakes trading.