Cryptocurrency has made some remarkable progress over the past few years and has become a solid source of investment for many. 

Although people were hesitant at first to dip their toes into this new form of payment due to its volatility and the doubts surrounding its legitimacy, its perks and potential benefits attracted many to test it out. 

The appeal of Bitcoin, or any other salary in crypto, lies in its near-instant receipt of funds, lack of overhead expenses, and third-party services, that is, crypto salaries are faster and simpler to manage —  unlike paychecks going through multiple banks for the transaction to be complete. 

Crypto was initially used by large corporations and major banks for investment purposes and operational and transactional purposes. But gradually businesses have started embracing crypto as a legitimate form of payment from clients and customers. Some enterprises have chosen to go a step further, though — there's a growing trend of companies offering salaries to their employees in various forms of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the like.

This year, Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami, suggested the city offer the option to its municipal workers, as well as accept tax payments in cryptocurrency. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also announced that the company is exploring ways to provide paychecks to its employees in Bitcoin. The NBA's Sacramento Kings also announced they would soon offer crypto as a salary option for their whole organization.

The current field of companies offering salaries in crypto is dominated by decentralized crypto wallet services, exchange and crowdsourcing platforms, and prediction or betting markets. Since the concept of offering payroll to the general masses in crypto is relatively new, the list of companies that pay fully or partially in crypto is currently relatively small — but we expect it to grow, and fast!

Blockchain.com 

The co-founder and board member of popular Bitcoin wallet service Blockchain.com, Nicolas ‘Nic’ Cary, strongly believes in the power that Bitcoin holds over the crypto market. 

Blockchain.com is a 100% Bitcoin-based business and does not hold even a single traditional bank account as per an interview published on Entrepreneur. Cary stated, “I’m very bullish on Bitcoin. My company is a 100 percent Bitcoin-based business. We don’t even have a corporate bank account. All of our employees are paid in Bitcoin and we do everything we can to maintain a Bitcoin economy”. Blockchain.com also actively offers a crypto bonus to all its employees.

BitShares

BitShares, formerly known as ProtoShares (PTS) is a decentralized exchange platform and crypto wallet for trading cryptocurrencies without leaving the blockchain. It was launched in 2014, and pays its employees or crypto miners in Bitcoin in the form of block rewards. 

It has two ways in which its miners are paid: through the mining fee or through these block rewards. Employees of Bitshares get their salary in crypto as well as fiat currencies.

Fairlay

Fairlay is a Bitcoin prediction market and cryptocurrency exchange where people place bets on events like sports, current news, or elections. It was founded in 2013 and in its initial days, most of its predictions revolved around sports. But with the development and progress of the company, it moved towards crypto predictions and became one of the most popular crypto betting platforms. Since Fairlay is a crypto exchange, it pays the salaries of its employees in Bitcoin.

Purse.io

Founded in 2014, Purse.io is a website that provides its users with unused Amazon gift cards and allows users to exchange their Amazon gift cards for Bitcoin. All employees at Purse.io work remotely and have confirmed that they get their paycheck in Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Purse does so as to promote crypto as useful and functional within the enterprise itself. 

SC5 

SC5 is an information technology and services company based in Helsinki, Finland. The company performs technical evaluations and migration assessments. SC5 announced on its blog that it will be allowing its workers to be paid partly in Bitcoins back in 2013. Currently, an SC5 employee can choose to receive their salary in crypto or fiat. 

Bitwage 

Bitwage aims to create solutions for companies and their workers by providing services like payroll, invoicing, and digital assets. Since its launch in 2013, over 5,000 qualified employees have applied for the service that pays in Bitcoin on Coinality. It allows conversion of fiat currency salaries into cryptocurrencies for all its employees in the UK, US, and Europe.

Exodus Wallet

Exodus is a crypto wallet that allows easy transactions with its simple interface and focuses on crypto beginners. It is one of the world’s leading desktop, mobile and hardware crypto wallets. Exodus empowers the use of crypto for everyday people to escape the traditional financial system and grants all its paychecks to its employees exclusively in Bitcoin.

OpenWeb 

Founded in 2012 as Spot.IM and rebranded to OpenWeb in 2020, this is an online platform that aims to democratize and improve conversations online.The company opened its own cryptocurrency exchange in which the monthly salaries of all employees is converted into BTC and then sent to the employees’ digital accounts. It considers the average of the highest and the lowest Bitcoin values on the day of the transfer so that market volatility does not affect the payments.

TrustSwap

TrustSwap, the full-service digital asset ecosystem, pays its employees in its native token SWAP, having adopted the Mass Pay platform by Gilded in 2021 to do so. This platform allows TrustSwap to pay up to 500 of its employees at once with Ethereum-based cryptocurrency tokens.

GMO Group

GMO Internet Group is an organization that focuses on developing internet infrastructure, online advertising, media, internet finance, and cryptocurrencies. It is the latest company to declare that 4,000 of its employees in the Japan headquarters would start receiving payments in Bitcoin. This initiative was taken to develop and promote cryptocurrencies. 

Cryptocurrency has undoubtedly gained significant attention from investors old and young worldwide. While cryptocurrency is still not used for salaries on a significant scale yet, the cases of employers accepting it as income currency of their employees is seeing an upsurge. 

The employer and employee only need to secure their crypto wallets before they can get paid, making crypto the futuristic path to payroll!