The real adoption of Bitcoin salaries

Are cryptocurrency wages an idea whose time has come? Maybe not. It’s one thing, after all, to dabble in Bitcoin (BTC) with one’s excess cash and quite another to take a significant portion of one’s salary in BTC. 

Moreover, there are often tax and custody questions about crypto, as well as concerns about price volatility. There’s the matter, too, that few actual items and services can be purchased at present with cryptocurrencies.

It’s not surprising, then, that aside from some celebrity athletes like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and some high-profile big-city United States mayors, relatively few people outside the cryptoverse appear to have embraced this next step in crypto adoption.

It’s in that context that one has to evaluate NYDIG’s recent announcement of a “partnership” with the New York Yankees baseball team that will allow players and other employees “to convert a portion of their paycheck to bitcoin via the NYDIG platform.” Is this the start of something new, given that it comes on the heels of a harsh crypto winter? Or is it just another public relations stunt, jumping on the bandwagon already established by professional U.S. football and basketball players?

Interestingly enough, NYDIG offered some hints that Bitcoin salaries could actually become a secular trend above and beyond recent headline cases, especially among younger workers. According to its press release:

“NYDIG research shows that 36% of employees under 30 said they would be interested in allocating a portion of their pay to bitcoin. Nearly 1 in 3 of those employees said that when choosing between two identical jobs at different employers, they would choose an employer that helped them get paid in Bitcoin.”

NYDIG isn’t alone in identifying Millennials and especially Gen Zers as prime candidates to take crypto salaries to the next level. Indeed, one global hiring firm’s recent analysis of 100,000-plus employee contracts suggested that crypto wages appear to be on the rise, particularly among “borderless” remote workers, and especially residents of certain high-inflation regions or those with shaky banking systems, such as Latin America. 

Others have suggested, too, that employee demand for a portion of one’s regular wage in cryptocurrencies or stablecoins may be impervious to market fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, though that sometimes seems hard to believe.

Younger generations are still keen

To this last point: In November, a deVere Group survey reported that a third of millennials and half of Generation Zers would be happy to receive 50% of their salary in Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies. This survey was conducted when crypto market prices were soaring, however. Does the financial advisory group believe that younger generations are still eager to receive their salaries in cryptocurrencies following a 50%-plus drawdown in crypto prices since that time?

“Younger generations are still keen to receive their salaries in cryptocurrencies as they have grown up on technology. They are ‘digital natives,’” Nigel Green, CEO of the deVere Group, told Cointelegraph, and more comfortable using cryptocurrencies than older generations. Moreover, “they know the future lies in tech and appreciate the inherent value of borderless, digital, global, censorship-resistant and non confiscatable currencies.”

“From our company, 90%+ [of employees] still stack Bitcoin regularly on a monthly basis,” Danny Scott, CEO and co-founder at the United Kingdom’s CoinCorner LTD, which has held Bitcoin on its balance sheet for some years and offers employees a BTC salary option, told Cointelegraph. “If anything, we have received more enquiries over the last few months from companies looking to pay their staff in Bitcoin.”

In June, an Ascent survey reported that “44% of Americans would consider receiving part of their salary in cryptocurrency, and 36% said they would consider receiving all of…