The first country in the world. Officially salary in cryptocurrency!

[RW719]

In New Zealand, from September 1, people will be able to get paid in cryptocurrency! 

This permission applies only to employees, the established salary will be paid only at a fixed rate, but this does not apply to premiums and dividends. Freelancers and self-employed workers were not included in the permit.

The tax authorities of this country have set the condition that the chosen digital money will be pegged to one of the paper currencies (New Zealand dollar). So that this salary in cryptocurrency can be converted into a standard form of payment, and also vice versa, for paying taxes. Therefore, the employer needs to pay salaries to employees, only liquid cryptocurrency, tied to the rate of fiat money.

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

I've heard similar things discussed over the past couple of years, and the exact same question asked numerous times.

No, I wouldn't want to get paid in crypto.  Not unless the items in my local supermarket are priced in bitcoin; not until my landlord accepts rent in bitcoin; and not until I can pay my utilities and phone bill in bitcoin.  Certainly not unless bitcoin's volatility goes down a lot.  With the price swings I've seen since I've been following bitcoin, it would be more risk than I'd be willing to bear to get my paycheck denominated in anything crypto.  It would be so easy to lose purchasing power within hours of getting paid.

Don't know how this is going to play out in New Zealand, but best of luck to anyone who takes advantage of it.  It might be attractive to receive part of your pay in bitcoin, just as an investment akin to contributing to a retirement plan, but I'd want the majority of it to be in fiat.  I would not want to get paid and then be unable to spend my money immediately at Starbucks or whatever, which would be pretty damn hard if all I had was bitcoin.

[YOSHIE]

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

I've heard similar things discussed over the past couple of years, and the exact same question asked numerous times.

The same thing I have seen in the last few weeks, about Scotland paying salaries in crypto.
Example:

1. https://thetokenist.io/salaries-can-now-be-paid-with-cryptocurrencies-in-new-zealand/
2. https://cryptopotato.com/new-zealand-to-legalize-and-tax-bitcoin-salary-payments-from-september/
3. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/08/12/new-zealand-bitcoin-salary-regulation-bad-idea/amp/

However, this does not apply in my country, even though now 1,700 people in my country are already familiar with Bitcoin.
But from another point of view, the government does not forbid and not order, every bitcoin user.
I also hope that this can happen in my country, going forward, hopefully.

[dkbit98]

That is good news,
and I think that probably Slovenia will do the same thing in Europe soon.

They now have big shopping places where you can pay everything with crypto,
and their Eligma system.

[GreatArkansas]

Does Japan not the first? Which few years ago, japan legalized bitcoin and considered Bitcoin  as a legal money on their country.

Btw, it's nothing to do who's first who officialy legalized Bitcoin on every country, as long as Bitcoin continue to grow and mass adoption too. Glad to hear this positive news for Bitcoin

[pakhitheboss]

In New Zealand, from September 1, people will be able to get paid in cryptocurrency! 

This permission applies only to employees, the established salary will be paid only at a fixed rate, but this does not apply to premiums and dividends. Freelancers and self-employed workers were not included in the permit.

The tax authorities of this country have set the condition that the chosen digital money will be pegged to one of the paper currencies (New Zealand dollar). So that this salary in cryptocurrency can be converted into a standard form of payment, and also vice versa, for paying taxes. Therefore, the employer needs to pay salaries to employees, only liquid cryptocurrency, tied to the rate of fiat money.

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

Bold and Innovative move by the Government of NZ. But, the real question arises How many employees will want to get paid in cryptos. Banks will still ask for Fiat and not cryptocurrency for Mortgage payments, Credit card payments, and Loan payments. I am also not sure whether local retailers are ready to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

The success of this policy depends completely on the financial ecosystem. I am sure it is still based on Fiat. Until it gets updated, I do not foresee a success.

[Zero1One0]

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

I've heard similar things discussed over the past couple of years, and the exact same question asked numerous times.

No, I wouldn't want to get paid in crypto.  Not unless the items in my local supermarket are priced in bitcoin; not until my landlord accepts rent in bitcoin; and not until I can pay my utilities and phone bill in bitcoin.  Certainly not unless bitcoin's volatility goes down a lot.  With the price swings I've seen since I've been following bitcoin, it would be more risk than I'd be willing to bear to get my paycheck denominated in anything crypto.  It would be so easy to lose purchasing power within hours of getting paid.

Don't know how this is going to play out in New Zealand, but best of luck to anyone who takes advantage of it.  It might be attractive to receive part of your pay in bitcoin, just as an investment akin to contributing to a retirement plan, but I'd want the majority of it to be in fiat.  I would not want to get paid and then be unable to spend my money immediately at Starbucks or whatever, which would be pretty damn hard if all I had was bitcoin.

I totally agree that it will be attractive to receive only a part of your pay in bitcoin. Employees should be able to select/opt how much % of their income should be paid in btc directly.
Certainly not 100% payout in btc at this time since BTC is quite slow and this will also hurt the economy since the velocity of money will be affected due to slow tx.
But once btc is accepted and can be used instantaneously like visa and mastercard and btc is also price stable, then I'm ok with 100% btc payout.

[timerland]

Pretty useless. I doubt there will even be 1 in 100 people who would prefer being paid in cryptocurrencies over regular fiat payments.

Mainstream adoption for cryptocurrencies are just not there yet - barely any stores in NZ would accept cryptocurrencies as a payment option, so you'd just need to sell your coins for fiat currencies and lose out on fees and waste time.

Plus, it's only stablecoins, which is even worse. You are being paid in a coin that's the same as fiat, but doesn't' have adoption like fiat.

Just a PR move for NZ, it's nothing really substantial.

[Kakmakr]

They have been doing this for the last year in my company too, but not a lot of the employees opted to accept this offer, due to the volatile nature of Bitcoin. I accepted the offer, but for only 10% to be paid in Bitcoin. <The 10% of my salary that I would have converted to Bitcoin in any way>

This helps me to eliminate any risk of losing Fiat value in the short term and also capitalizing on the fees that I do not have to pay to convert that 10% to Bitcoin myself. 

[The Cryptovator]

It has been discussed with source news. The thread is here, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5175021.msg52146161#msg52146161

We have seen previously there was few news about legalization of bitcoin/crypto-currency. But seems eventually New Zealand going to implement crypto-currency use officially. However, it is really good thing for crypto-currency user who live in New Zealand.

[avikz]

Re:  The first country in the world. Officially salary in cryptocurrency!

No! Check your facts before becoming excited about anything. Japan is officially the first country to offer salaries in cryptos and that happened quite a few years back. Initially we thought it will not be a very popular option for the salaried class people. But it seems like pretty successful in Japan. For reference, you can read the below news,

https://news.bitcoin.com/japan-labor-ministry-confused-as-crypto-salaries-demand-increased/

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

It's a very old question and asked many times in this forum. I would not personally prefer to receive my salary in crypto because of undermentioned reasons,

1. Price fluctuations - My salary takes care of my EMIs. So I definitely wouldn't want to risk the value of the salary to be volatile. Salary has to be stable in terms of purchasing power. Crypto posses a major risk in this parameter.

2. Adoption rate - Crypto adoption rate in my country is really low. It will take me ages to find a merchant who is willing to accept crypto for my daily purchases.

3. Fear of hacking - In a centralized banking environment, it is possible to reverse a transaction if anything goes wrong. But absolutely not possible in a crypto environment. Once it is gone, it's gone forever!

[maydna]

That is good news for me. I guess that will give fresh air for the cryptocurrency to grow more so the cryptocurrency can reach more people in the other country. But we don't know how the reaction for people who are work in the office, perhaps, some of them agrees to receive their salary in cryptocurrency and some of them do not agree. There will a discussion more about that, but I hope that the employee can choose what suit with them and the government does not force them to obey the new regulations.

[Anonylz]

As much as i love to hear this and know what it means in respect of adoption and general acceptance, for me i don't think i would want to receive my salary in cryptocurrency, okey that may sound absurd as a crypto enthusiast, but from the point of view of crypto high volatility and unstable price i wouldn't want to receive my salary this way, what happens if the price of crypto goes up or down, how will the coy balance this?

[Jating]

The first company that pays their employee with bitcoin is GMO, A company in Japan wants to start paying employees in Bitcoin.

So I don't understand what is the big fuss is all about. We also have to bear in mind the volatility nature of bitcoin here, so I don't know if majority of New Zealand workforce will agree to be paid in bitcoin though.

[noselfdub]

I'm so excited to hear that and if i have a chance, I'll try.
Not many people will accept crypto payment because they must convert their crypto into cash later. We need cash in every single day to pay for food and others while crypto can't.

[Mandoy]

It is good to hear that there are already certain countries that are mainstreaming bitcoin use. This is possible in Switzerland because there is support in the government, other countries will have a hard time doing it since it is a complex task that needs cooperation from different sectors. And the only way to unite and make all sectors agree is the government. In our country I prefer to receive my salary in the form of fiat currency since there are many places without internet and not all have access to computers and it equipments and facilities.

[jake zyrus]

I believe it's a good news not only for New Zealand but also for everyone. It would help to give other people,a knowledge about the existence of cryptocurrency and bitcoin. It's also a good news because the government is positive towards crypto.

It would still up to the employees if they would prefer it in fiat or crypto. There would be a lot of rules, options, and limitations about that. It would be better to give more information about it.

[Red-Apple]

news like this are good but not because people are going to jump in and get paid fully in bitcoin. what people miss in cases like this is that such news is putting the ground work in place so that from now on and in a couple of years a big infrastructure could be built because of this first step that was taken today.

so yeah, i am also not going to be willing to get paid in bitcoin yet since the supermarkets don't sell things for bitcoin. but with this they will soon do that too and then i can get paid in bitcoin.

[coin-investor]

In New Zealand, from September 1, people will be able to get paid in cryptocurrency! 

This permission applies only to employees, the established salary will be paid only at a fixed rate, but this does not apply to premiums and dividends. Freelancers and self-employed workers were not included in the permit.

The tax authorities of this country have set the condition that the chosen digital money will be pegged to one of the paper currencies (New Zealand dollar). So that this salary in cryptocurrency can be converted into a standard form of payment, and also vice versa, for paying taxes. Therefore, the employer needs to pay salaries to employees, only liquid cryptocurrency, tied to the rate of fiat money.

Would you like to get paid in  cryptocurrency?

This is for the record, I would like to see how things will turn out, hopefully, it will become successful in New Zealand, then other countries can make them a model if they want to implement it in their own country.

I would also like to get paid in Bitcoin but some companies will have to deal with the rules governing it because of it's volatility and complication
but there will come a time that people will prefer Cryptocurrency over fiat for their salary.

[Capt00]

It is something earing and nice to look by, but how people appreciate crypto and accept this as a form of currency, it might not look good.
Though it is officially started, but to know if the people in this country are ready for this and also the market. If bitcoin is accepted in all establishment, then there is no problem but if not, better to stick with fiat rather than offering crypto as salary.