Bitwage Implements USD Coin (USDC) to Pay Remote Workers on the Stellar Blockchain

We are continuing our ongoing pace of payroll innovation by announcing that we are enabling USD Coin (USDC) via the Stellar blockchain on our platform.

Companies across the world now have a fully compliant, easy-to-use, and frictionless solution when it comes to paying their employees and contractors globally. Hiring talent among different continents and countries can be a major pain – even for companies that already have an established presence in the countries they want to hire from – and we are aiming to provide a new solution with this latest implementation.

Paying your workforce in specific countries is a process that is plagued with a variety of problems. Leveraging global banking systems for payroll can take many hours, and this issue is compounded by the fact that accurate reporting requires lots of time and effort. To avoid these major headaches, companies resort to not hiring at all from specific countries.

In addition to this, it’s a harsh reality that workers around the world are losing up to 10% of their salaries, waiting between five days and two weeks to receive their paychecks. Many of these workers then receive money in local currencies with much higher rates of inflation, meaning they lose 5% to 20% of their savings compared to the dollar every year.

“The use case is especially prevalent in Latin American markets where stablecoins are quickly growing in popularity,” said Chester. “In places like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, there is incredible demand for stablecoins on chains that have lower fees. Stellar has a great history and so they work out perfectly for this.”

With this announcement, workers are now able to receive any percentage of their salaries they want in digital dollars, via USDC. This means lower costs, same-day deposits of their funds, the ability to store their savings in USD, and the ability to get local currency exactly when they need it. By leveraging USDC on the Stellar blockchain, workers are given access to USDC on a low-fee blockchain that has one of the longest histories in the industry.

Here’s how it works: Any company in the world can register with Bitwage today and use it to pay their workforce. After this, the company invites their workers to Bitwage’s platform. Workers then choose what percentage of their salary will go into USDC, local currencies, or Bitcoin. When it comes to salary itself, companies pay the wages just like they are used to paying, without reducing overhead on their accounting or salary department. Once paychecks are funded and paid, workers receive USDC and any other currencies to addresses or bank accounts they have provided.

If an individual needs their money right away, and they can’t afford to hold it for long periods of time, USDC is an extremely convenient option. Additionally, big companies looking for stability may not be ready to take on the occasional volatility of Bitcoin. Using Bitwage for USDC payroll with Stellar gives both individuals and companies a low-risk option to partake in the crypto payroll revolution.

“USDC on the Stellar network has lower fees, so you can receive your money faster, cheaper and keep it as digital dollars for saving,” said Bitwage CEO Jonathan Chester. “Our users have been asking for low-cost options for stablecoins and we are very excited to deliver. Now, companies can guarantee cheaper, faster and better payment options to all their workforce. This option is fully regulated and compliant so all companies have to worry about is how to keep their employees happy and not worry about payments issues. Thanks to USDC over Stellar, digital dollars will make a huge change to people’s lives."