According to a payroll firm in Ontario, Canada, the number of workers that have decided to opt out of being paid in their local currency and requested payment in bitcoin instead has recently seen a small but significant growth.
Not only has this year’s increasing popularity of the bitcoin caused a jump in the number of employees asking about how the cryptocurrency works but it has also led to staff from as many as 10 companies asking to be signed up for payment in bitcoin.
Initially set up as a side project, one of the companies were surprised that there had been any interest shown at all as they were not expecting a single person to take up the bitcoin option. On top of this they advised that a number of customers had actually come to them because they had decided to integrate bitcoin into their business.
So far the vast majority of the 10 companies that have given their staff the option to get paid in bitcoins have been technology firms. The most likely reason for this is because of the increased interest shown by employees at these type of companies in innovative and new technologies such as bitcoin. It could also be because IT staff are often more willing than staff at non-IT companies to take a chance with new technology.
The interest in bitcoin, however, has not just been limited to just Canada as there have apparently been a number of monthly enquiries made about the use of bitcoin from Companies in the United States where the payroll company also has offices. Unfortunately though it has not made the option available to companies or staff Stateside at the moment.
Although the bitcoin currency has been around for a number of years now it only really rose to mainstream status back in 2013 and even now is still not accepted in most regular shops. Also, from a Canadian perspective the currency was ruled as being property rather than a real currency by the Canadian Government back in June and is now considered to be a barter transaction rather than a currency transaction within the country.
According to the Canadian payroll company it still has to officially pay the staff that have taken up the bitcoin option in Canadian Dollars then take off the tax to give to the government and the remainder is then converted into bitcoins to give to its staff.
This example though is one of the key reasons why there is unlikely to be a widespread take-up of the bitcoin currency any time soon. Until legislation and regulations in most countries change the adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency will be a slow one as the risks can be a lot higher than relying on regular currency.
For most people that have moved over to bitcoin payments as their salary there is little they can do to get away from the need for regular currency to cater for their day-to-day living no matter how much they want to live off their bitcoins.