Over the past year, there has been no better-performing asset class than cryptocurrencies. In fact, over a roughly 53-week period from the beginning of 2017 through Jan. 7, 2018, cryptocurrencies have probably delivered the biggest increase in value we've ever witnessed for a single asset class -- over 4,500%.

Not surprisingly, at the front of the pack for digital currencies is bitcoin. As the world's first tradable virtual coin, and the one that brought blockchain technology into the mainstream -- blockchain is the digital and distributed ledger that logs all transactions and underpins virtual coins -- it's somewhat expected that bitcoin retains its spot as the world's most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap.

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Overstock leads the way in bitcoin acceptance

Additionally, bitcoin also happens to be the most popular virtual currency with merchants. Back in 2014, bitcoin snagged five brand-name businesses that began accepting its virtual coin, and it's been steadily adding retailers ever since. Perhaps none stands out more than online home-goods retailer Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK).

Overstock became the first major retailer to jump onboard with accepting bitcoin, and has since expanded to accepting a half-dozen cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Dash, and Monero. The latter two are among the popular privacy-coin movement.

It's also heavily involved in developing blockchain technology, with CEO Patrick Byrne exploring the possibility of selling the Overstock.com retail business in order to focus on the blockchain projects of its subsidiaries.

But for as much as Overstock has been a pioneer of cryptocurrency use, it's also made some rookie mistakes. Perhaps none was more glaring than what happened two weeks ago when it had a snafu with its cryptocurrency integration system in recognizing the difference between bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.

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This bitcoin boo-boo could leave a mark

For those who may not recall, Bitcoin Cash forked from bitcoin in late August 2017. The reason Bitcoin Cash came into existence, as with other previous forks from bitcoin, is that the bitcoin community couldn't reach the needed 80% consensus regarding the future path bitcoin would take. In this specific instance, the fork was cause by the inability of the community to reach consensus regarding a software upgrade designed to improve capacity and lower transaction fees. While most were in favor of the upgrade, which would take some information off bitcoin's network in order to improve capacity, it didn't reach the needed 80% consensus, leading to a fork into two separate digital currencies.

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