Your payroll in bitcoins

Spanish companies begin to get on the cryptocurrency cart and some already think of bitcoins to pay their employees and receive payments

    A large part of the population is not clear about what bitcoins are, although it is a term that has become very popular in the last two years, but on the other hand there are those who already receive part of their salary in this virtual currency and even have the possibility of buying houses and trips with her. As in all technological advances, "it will take a few years" for the population to adapt to change and "cryptocurrencies become a day-to-day thing".

Curro Quevedo works from Zooo, a mobile repair shop in the ABC Serrano shopping center in Madrid, where one of the first cryptocurrencies ATMs in the Bitnovo company has been installed. The responsible says that although it has been installed for a year and a half, at first it was not very used. However now "every day people come to buy bitcoins"


    How does it work? It is not a cashier to use, but rather it is a vending machine in which you enter the amount in euros that you want to exchange for bitcoins (from 10 to 500 euros) and generate a coupon that the customer You can change on your website for the virtual currency within three months. "There are people who although they bought it today, do not exchange it for another week because they are waiting for the change, this currency fluctuates a lot," explains Quevedo.

Are there already salaries in bitcoins?
"Some companies already pay in bitcoins in Spain," says Pablo F. Burgueño, founder of NevTrace and an expert in crypto-dumbs. In his case explains that they raised in the company but decided it was better to continue charging in euros and then each "bought the bitcoins you want" because by law "you can only receive 30% of salary in this currency" because it is recognized as a payment in kind to be a digital asset.

It is, therefore, a payment in kind of very high risk. "If this large amount is given to the worker, he runs the risk of losing everything, so it can not be imposed that the collection is like that and at most 30% of the total salary," explains Burgueño.


Different is the case of the company ReparaTuDeuda , where they have decided that their employees can collect the part of the salary that they decide in bitcoins although they make it clear that "not as a tax benefit because everything will pay the same, but to encourage the use of new technologies" , says Enrique Espinosa, CTO of the company.

At the moment they are in the phase of training courses so that workers learn more about this cryptocurrency and make their decision. In addition, the CTO announces that ATMs will be installed in its headquarters so that people with their "virtual wallet can change bitcoins for euros".

There are more cases outside our borders. The Japanese Internet services giant GMO announced last December that it will pay in bitcoin part of the salaries to those of its 4,700 employees who wish to do so starting in February, which is the first initiative of its kind among large companies in the world. country. The company offers to receive a fraction of its salary between 10,000 yen (74 euros) and 100,000 yen (748 euros) in the virtual currency. Its objective is to "promote the active use of virtual currency" among its employees and "increase its knowledge about this type of currency," according to a statement from the Japanese company.

Houses in bitcoins
Despite the distrust it generates in the market, the recent restrictions against it and the increase of its control by the Treasury, the bitcoin is also getting stronger in the real estate market, where experts believe that the consolidation of this Currency is just a matter of time. In fact, there are already houses that are for sale only in bitcoins in the photo portal Fotocasa.

It is a house in El Sauzal, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife of 200 m2 with sea views. It can be purchased only through the cryptocurrency for a price of 45 bitcoins (about 450,000 euros). From Fotocasa assure this newspaper that this is a trend "totally new and not yet has many followers." Currently in the portal have nine homes that accept payment in bitcoins. They emphasize the fact that of these houses, four are in Catalonia. "Being intermediaries are not present at any time of the exchange, so while the type of payment is legal and regulated, we will let them announce the type of payment that owners want to make", explain the same sources.