Bitcoin Forum

Let's say your employer tells you that for your next paycheck you'll have the option of being paid in Bitcoin, would you do it? If not, or if so with caveats, what would be the reason preventing you from making such a decision?

I'm thinking that if we had a reliable way to pay with a debit card, keeping in mind that the owner of the card would NOT be able to reverse any transactions whatsoever, then more of us might be okay with the idea of accepting our paychecks in Bitcoin. What do the rest of you think?

It's sort of a silly idea right now due to the volatility of the exchange rates. The value of government money is still way more stable (for now). So amassing more than a few BTC would be silly unless the person wants to speculate on BTC's future value. If someone wants to speculate, they can do that buying through an exchange. I have cell phone bills, cable bills, and a mortgage, all denominated in government money, so introducing a wild card like holding all my savings in BTC is a poor idea.

BTW, Bitcoins have lost 5.8% vs the USD just in the past 3 or 4 days, and that's not even remarkable. You don't even see those swings in exchange rates vs developing economies with 10+% inflation.

I would take it in a second.

Basically it would save me transacting my savings into BTC myself and let me decide how much to give the tax man ;)


Naturally my pay would be denominated in currency other than BTC that's fine.

In fact if in the future I am in the position to bargain I will likely push myself to settle in BTC whether for rent, paycheck or investment overseas.

BTC only truly shines once you cut the fiat out of the loop.

I don't think minimum wage law recognizes the value of Bitcoin... so sure, pay me in Bitcoin to show me you don't have good legal counsel...

You would have to be paid in taxable government currency and then have it deposited in some employer credit union that allows you to withdraw in forex if you want.

There could be Bitcoin bonuses or such, but even that might be as taxable as when you get the gold watch when you retire. (http://www.borelassociates.com/topics/IRS_Rules_for_Award_Programs.pdf)

I can, and have.  I'm self employed and do computer programming for various clients.  I prefer bitcoin over letting paypal have 3% of giving elance.com 7%.

Let's consider that it's also far more moral, honorable, and respectable to be paid in free-market Bitcoin currency as opposed to coercive fiat currency.  One is doing a philanthropic favor to the whole of society by deciding to transact in moral money.

Okay, so volatility seems to be one reason. For me, the biggest reason why I wouldn't be paid in Bitcoin is because I couldn't purchase in Bitcoin. I think there's probably a market for this sort of thing, however, I'd be willing to do deposits with a bank/credit union that converted my paycheck automatically to Bitcoin and then used a two-auth or even three-auth method of payment verification (using credit card would require I verify via SMS/Yubikey for every online payment, with the understanding there'd be no chargebacks).

I think such a thing would be possible to implement if a credit union was willing to provide or implement something like a "hot-wallet" for most of my transfers and an offline storage mechanism otherwise. Volatility isn't really a huge concern for me, I already do regular transfers both into and out of Bitcoin. Perhaps a hybrid mechanism would work best, the first $500 of my paycheck goes into a Bitcoin wallet, and the rest is stored in USD. Would anyone be interested in something along those lines, perhaps?

I'd presume this employer wouldn't require drug testing ;)

(But in all seriousness, a lot of the jobs I work pay me, personally, in BTC. I've always considered it much closer to a 401k, if you withdraw early, you don't get to keep all the money!)