Dell Becomes the Largest Company by Revenue to Accept BitcoinDell Becomes the Largest Company by Revenue to Accept Bitcoin

On July 18, 2014, a computer giant with roughly $57 billion in annual revenue started taking bitcoin for everything it sold, from budget laptops to enterprise servers. The story of how Dell could move that fast begins with a shareholder revolt exactly one year earlier, to the day.

Escaping the Quarterly TreadmillEscaping the Quarterly Treadmill

In 2013, Michael Dell took his company private in a $24.4 billion buyout with Silver Lake Partners. The explicit goal was to escape Wall Street's quarterly earnings pressure and free the company to make the kind of long-term bets a public company answering to analysts every ninety days cannot. The deal very nearly did not happen. On July 18, 2013, exactly one year before the Bitcoin announcement, Dell's special committee abruptly adjourned the shareholder vote to keep the buyout from failing outright at the ballot box. Michael Dell was roughly 150 million votes short of approval.

Icahn's Mockery and a Narrow EscapeIcahn's Mockery and a Narrow Escape

Carl Icahn, the activist investor fighting the deal, ridiculed the delay in an open letter: "Can you imagine a political election contest where one side could push off the election to wait for a better day to hold the election?" The vote was adjourned three times, on July 18, July 24, and August 2, before shareholders finally approved a sweetened $13.75 per share offer on September 12, 2013. The buyout closed on October 29, 2013, and Dell was a private company again, free to place bets without a quarterly audience.

One Year Later, to the DayOne Year Later, to the Day

On July 18, 2014, the now-private Dell announced it would accept bitcoin via Coinbase for everything it sold to US customers. Michael Dell broke the news himself on Twitter: "Dell is now the world's largest ecommerce business to accept #bitcoin." CoinDesk covered the launch the same day at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2014/07/18/computer-giant-dell-now-accepts-bitcoin, noting the rollout details: a dedicated bitcoin page on Dell's site, a 10% discount on Alienware gaming products for bitcoin buyers, and refunds on bitcoin purchases paid out as USD checks rather than bitcoin. At roughly $57 billion in revenue, Dell was about four times the size of the previous record holder, DISH Network.

The Fourteen-Day BuildThe Fourteen-Day Build

The detail that connects the buyout to the Bitcoin launch came from Dell's CIO of Commerce Services, Paul Walsh, who said the entire Coinbase integration was built and shipped in two weeks: "It is always our goal to respond quickly to our customers and ensure their needs are met. Partnering with Coinbase to implement this solution in 14 days is a prime example of the new, more agile Dell." A public Dell, choreographing every move for quarterly earnings calls, would have been hard pressed to greenlight and ship a bitcoin checkout in fourteen days. A private Dell simply did it.

The Bitcoin World ReactsThe Bitcoin World Reacts

Coverage was immediate. PCWorld, the LA Times, and the NY Times all picked up the story, along with international outlets like De Telegraaf, and r/bitcoin lit up with enthusiasm. Contemporary observers pointed out that by taking bitcoin directly, Dell was sidestepping traditional card processing fees. Less than a month later, the bet produced a headline of its own: a customer placed a PowerEdge server order worth more than 85 BTC, around $50,000, likely an entire server farm's worth of hardware. Michael Dell tweeted about that one personally too.

The Quiet ExitThe Quiet Exit

The experiment stayed modest, and it did not last. Dell expanded bitcoin payments to Canada and the UK in 2015, then discontinued them entirely in October 2017, citing low demand and high transaction fees. Not long after Dell walked away, bitcoin's price ran to nearly $20,000. The bold move was real, the volume in practice was small, and the ending was quiet. But for a moment in the summer of 2014, the fastest-moving bitcoin merchant in the world was a $57 billion company that had spent the previous year fighting for the freedom to move that fast.

Part of an ongoing series on Bitcoin history. This event falls on July 18, 2014.