Bitcoin Forum

Hi, it's Sonia from Bitwage here. For those who don't Bitwage, it's a Bitcoin Payroll company.

Although we've been in the space for a bit(since 2014), we were not very active on the forum here, what you can clearly see as we are a "Newbie" :) (yeah, I know, we missed a lot of good stuff)!

Anyway,

In Bitwage, we obviously believe that getting paid in crypto is leading to increased adoption. If you get paid in BTC, you look for ways to spend it, if you can spend BTC to pay for goods and services, you probably want to earn it too.

Just being curious about your opinions - what are your thoughts on getting your salary paid in Bitcoin? Hell yeah, that's great, no way, this idea sucks?
Do you ACTUALLY feel like bitcoin adoption keeps increasing or do you still struggle to find a merchant who accepts BTC??

Any thoughts will be much appreciated.

In my country I don't feel any increase in adoption at merchants.
A very few number of (online) stores accept Bitcoin, there's one or two car dealers and there may be a property broker.
But for every day things - groceries, coffee, transportation, fuel, toys for the kids - I still have to rely onto fiat.

I think getting paid 100% in BTC is not a good idea, and probably illegal almost everywhere.
But a bonus paid in BTC would be interesting. Or maybe few % every month.

I don't see "Bitcoin adoption" and "merchant adoption" as the same thing. A lot of adoption is speculative and not grounded in the currency use case. So, I think Bitcoin adoption is definitely increasing even if merchants are lagging behind.

I love getting paid in Bitcoin. I would love to get a portion of my salary paid that way. It would definitely help me tuck some more coins away. I always spend some of my Bitcoin earnings, but I'm more careful with it than fiat money.

For now basing on the current condition on my country towards crypto.There's still no company that do consider on paying out their employees with Bitcoin
and the main reason is volatility and all people do know about such thing.Its possible for it to be adopted but not on to that extent on where they would be the
main when it comes to salary system.It wont really work.

The idea never sucks, of course. I would be appreciative if I am paid with bitcoin as my salary. Why? I would not go into the hassle of buying bitcoin in an exchange here in my country where they are taking a big percentage in terms of profits. However, since it is very volatile...will it not cause some complaints with those who are not really into cryptocurrency or do you also provide a mechanism where they can immediately convert the bitcoin to cash? I know this kind of set-up can help in the spread and adoption of bitcoin and can also be of big help to people who have the desire to "hodl" a part of their salary in bitcoin which can be taken in as a saving.

By the way, Sonia welcome to the forum. I am wishing you well and a happy stay with us. I am encouraging that you also launch some promotions here. Thanks.

I think it is a good thing, I think the person should have the option to choose if he wants Bitcoin or Fiat.
They should have the option to choose to get payed however they want, maybe they want a mix like 10% Bitcoin 90% Fiat.

There was a article in the Dutch paper the other day that dutch company BTC Direct (They sell and buy Bitcoins in The Netherlands connected with the Dutch banking system) pays there employees in Bitcoin and they started doing that a year ago.

All the employees are very happy now and they chose to go in with a average sum of €100.

This is the full Article but it is in Dutch so you might not understand it, if you really want I could translate it!

https://www.ad.nl/economie/uitbetaald-worden-in-bitcoin-medewerkers-btc-direct-zijn-er-blij-mee~a432c44f/ (https://www.ad.nl/economie/uitbetaald-worden-in-bitcoin-medewerkers-btc-direct-zijn-er-blij-mee~a432c44f/)

One of my main job is paid with Bitcoin, the other with stable coin and the other one with fiat. To be honest, I love getting paid in Bitcoin because it saves my time. Compared to getting paid in fiat, which can take additional days to be processed (all of my jobs are international jobs, or in short, my clients lives in another country). If I get paid in fiat, they'll require extra fees to process my payment, so using Bitcoin is definitely a good thing.

What sucks is there's not so many merchant who accept Bitcoin here as it's not legal in my country to be used for payment. So I'll need to exchange it to fiat, with more or less $7 fee for each exchange.

The way I see it, there is currently not much of an advantage for salary to be paid in BTC, be it partially or totally, over FIAT. Quite the opposite for the most. Besides saving on TX fees, from there on there are important aspects to consider which fall under the dome of your personal preferences, regulation, and feasibility of being able to spend it (unless you consider it a way of saving/investing, which is not exempt from risk).

Personal preferences could lead you to consider it cool and trendy, but reality bites, and you are going to need FIAT for the most, so even if you save the purchase TX fees, you’ll still need to spend the conversion fees for paying your bills, at least it you ponder a total payment in BTC. A partial payment comes under the investment domain nowadays, and some may like a regular amount of their salary set aside for that, although I doubt that the proportion would be high vs FIAT for the most.

Regulation is a keystone in this decision, and that is evolving and still will evolve further more. It is also a country based feature, and many are still rather much in the blue here. I’ve read many cases of people having issues with their tax office when trying to regulate their BTC income, and for the most, they prefer to HODL or find an alternative way to be able to spend it.

Then there’s the feasibility of being able to actually spend it. In my day to day, chances of using BTC to pay any for a TX without massively trying to shift habits and places of purchase are near to 0%. That is how it is for the most, and render BTC largely as a store of value/investment than a practical current payment method.

I personally prefer which price points I want my money to come in, so it's a no for me. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would like this though.

Yea, pretty much next to zero brick and mortar stores accepts bitcoin as payment in the city I'm in. We can pay for mobile load and bills using bitcoin through the Coins.ph app though, so there's that.

I don't mind getting paid in bitcoin for my services as long as it is not based on a fixed rate. I get paid based on the current value of bitcoin like what we see on CMC.

Agree it could act as novelty in a good way. Interesting to employes.
Company would look and feel more modern giving such opportunity.

Its good that companies like bitwage exist, its good for Bitcoin adoption.

AFAIK there are basically no stores accepting Bitcoin near where I live, though I can buy electronics and a bunch of stuff with Bitcoin from sites with a large selection of goods online like Newegg. I'd spend more in Bitcoin if there were to be stores accepting it as a method of payment near me. I've tried unsuccessfully to convince stores to accept BTC in the past as well. Hopefully things change in the future.

As for getting paid in crypto, I love Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies but I don't think I'd ever choose to receive 100% of my salary in Bitcoin. Might go for something like a medium percentage in Bitcoin, but not a majority. It's just more convenient to pay in fiat for many things at the moment.

Merchant adoption is toast and getting toastier but that's not the reason most want paying in BTC anyway.

I would be interested but only if the fees are similar to using a standard exchange. So many services want more money for doing something you can easily do yourself.

Actually I wouldn't be very interested on this service, because there is no effort in sending my salary in fiat from my bank account to the exchange account, so I can exchange it by myself through the virtual platform. It's one less intermediary needed on the whole ecosystem.
However, if I used btc as currency more often, I would think better about this matter. :)

I guess this kind of topic is hotter today after Kraken paid 250 employees was paid in bitcoin. Last 2017, there's a Japanese company that paid their employees with bitcoin but it's just a portion. The idea of getting paid with bitcoin sure is a good idea for bitcoin enthusiast but it's a no for those who are not.

I'd personally choose to get paid half or one fourth of my salary in bitcoin if the company that I'm working with will ask me about that.

Yes. Just look on the news, facebook, apple, Microsoft, these companies are multi-billion dollars.

Not really because I have an option just to convert it to cash if the merchant isn't willing to accept bitcoin.

For a crypto friendly country, that will be good even there are fewer merchants around to spend BTC with. At most of the cases, people preferred bitcoin payment not because they will spend it but rather will take advantage of its price. So few merchants accepting bitcoin isn't really a big deal to them.

The idea of getting paid in bitcoin is not convenient in a country where options to withdraw or convert it to cash is limited or having a hard time to process. In here, bitcoin payment will not use quickly as soon as it received.

Anyhow, this feature should be not mandatory by the company and only limited to employees who preferred to be paid in BTC.

Bitwage acts as a financial intermediary providing service to companies and its workers
on company side they still paying workers' salary in fiat money but directed to workers' account on bitwage
and for workers they will receive payment in cryptocurrency with no hassle (but watchout for the service fee)

of course it would not be mandatory
based on what I read, the service can facilitate workers even without the employer involvement
the workers can just ask the employer to pay his fiat salary to his bitwage account
getting payment from overseas company needs to wait for international money transfer and fund clearing in the bank
so this will be a good option for cross-country workers that want to expedite payment of their salaries