

Finnish HTML5 house SC5 pays salary and accepts payments as Bitcoins - peedro
http://blog.sc5.fi/2013/03/sc5-pays-salaries-in-bitcoin/

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DoubleCluster
Good PR, but why would anyone want to get part of their salary paid in
bitcoins? You get the disadvantages of both.

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jerguismi
Automatic dollar-averaged investment done by the company. I would like that
service if I were a regular worker.

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brittohalloran
In the most volatile stock ever

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danielbarla
Wouldn't it be more accurate to call it a commodity? Stocks are (usually)
stakes in a company, whose employees are actively trying to make a profit for
the shareholders, whereas currencies just kind of... sit there (and move
around, more or less randomly, at least, non-predictably).

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smrtinsert
i believe currencies are traded in the form of FOREX futures, which are
contracts that must be settled on a date sometime from now. they are not
mediated by an exchange like NASDAQ if memory serves, its just one big crazy
open market.

i would say bitcoin trading belongs in the category of DIGEX then, a digital
currency exchange.

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ISL
Good luck doing your taxes!

Seriously. Is there any simple guidance on how to figure your income if paid
in BTC?

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iwwr
They're still paid in EUR, just getting some of that converted to BTC. If
selling the BTC later on makes them a profit, it becomes the responsibility of
the employee to report any profits.

The greater problem is how the employer manages to get a hold of larger
amounts of BTC needed.

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Cthulhu_
> The greater problem is how the employer manages to get a hold of larger
> amounts of BTC needed.

If I were the employer, I'd be wringing my hands; for all I know they could've
gotten a small fortune in BTC when they were still cheap to generate /
purchase, and since then the value of BTC has sixtupled (or more). So, pay
their employees without having to spend real money. I'm probably not
understanding BTC though.

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hatu
I'm not sure how the taxes work but wouldn't it be kind of like buying shares
as a company that made good profits. It's not free money in the eyes of the
tax office.

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jerguismi
And it is not free money even if you didn't pay the taxes. Who knew 2 years
ago that bitcoin would be trading now at almost $50 a pop? There has always
been huge risk with buying bitcoins, since it is so new technology.

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betterunix
"Based on cryptography, it is secure and deterministic as we require for
digital services."

This is a bad understanding of cryptography. Bitcoin does _not_ provide
security in the cryptographic sense, any more than Skype or Hushmail. It uses
secure cryptographic primitives but can be successfully attacked (double-
spent) in polynomial time.

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jerguismi
> It uses secure cryptographic primitives but can be successfully attacked
> (double-spent) in polynomial time.

Does that kind of sentence promote better understanding how cryptography or
bitcoin works for the average Joe?

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betterunix
No, perhaps it would be better phrased as this: Bitcoin does not meet the
minimum standard of security required by modern cryptography despite being
built on systems that do meet such a standard. Even that phrasing is
suboptimal, though, since the definition of "security" for a hash function is
different from the definition for a signature system and both are different
from the definition used for digital cash.

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Yver
That seems about as notable as being paid in Turkish lira or in watermelons.
Anyone can take their salary in local currency and exchange it for something
else. There's little incentive to lock part of your salary in a foreign(?)
currency when they _"use the daily exchange rate of the payday."_

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Karunamon
Turkish lira or watermelons aren't relevant to technology professionals.

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awnird
Neither are bitcoins. Please don't assume that anyone who shares your
profession also shares your peculiar political views.

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alvaromuir
Now.. if only my landlord, baby mama and weed dealer would follow suit....

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johnward
So is this like company script? I mean I wouldn't want to be paid in BTC
unless it was widely accepted.

