According to a recent Guardian Headline, the Japanese firm GMO Internet will start to pay a portion of its employees salaries in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in an effort to gain a better understanding of the currency.
While SI sees the value of Bitcoin, especially for global transactions (as this could eliminate the need to manage multiple currencies as all the organization would need to do is manage its in-country currency against Bitcoin), it does not see the value of using Bitcoin for salaries and does not think employees will either. Nor should an employee (or a consultant or even a small businesses) be forced to take the financial risk of being paid in what is essentially a stock at the moment with prices changing, sometimes rapidly, from day to day. Between the time they get paid and can convert their salary to yen, they could have a serious portion of their salary wiped out. That’s not fair.
While companies should get a handle on this, they should be learning by way of B2B transactions, as mid-size to large businesses, with their advanced online banking and trading platforms, and full time financial managers, are not only in a better position to not only exchange Bitcoin for Yen as needed, even on short notice, but also more capable of weathering temporary storms, letting the ‘coin sit during temporary drops, or using it quickly during temporary gains, and using Yen from the bank when it makes sense.
That’s why SI(‘s parent company) will not be paying its employees, contractors, or small business suppliers Bitcoin, and why it won’t be accepting Bitcoin (or any other coin) in the near future. Until more banks are equipped to handle these currencies in their platforms (as true currencies, and not just for [futures] trading), crypto currencies, for the doctor, will remain a C2B or B2B currency.