(Payment Week) Uphold Makes Cryptocurrency Paychecks A Bit More Usable

March 15, 2018 By: Steven Anderson

Have you ever thought about getting paid in bitcoin? The concept may sound ludicrous, but we’ve already seen some businesses make that step forward, at least in part. The problem with the concept is that the process involved in doing something like that is cumbersome and difficult to work with. That problem may be on the mend, though, thanks to Uphold.

Uphold is actively working to bridge the gaps between employer, employee, and cryptocurrency, making it effectively possible to pay employee wages in at least a portion of cryptocurrency. Uphold has teamed up with Dash—a familiar name for cryptocurrency market followers—and Bitwage, a cryptocurrency payroll firm, to help bring the payment mechanism to more employee’s pay packets.

Bitwage already had a system in place that could pay users in cryptocurrency, as long as the cryptocurrency was either bitcoin or Ethereum. Even the Ethereum part didn’t come until later on, and considering the sheer array of other cryptocurrencies out there, Bitwage was fighting a losing battle to keep up.

Enter Uphold, which actually specializes in the conversion of fiat currency to other forms of currency, including the crypto variety. The combination of Bitwage and Uphold opened up new possibilities in connecting workers with cryptocurrency, though even as this happened, the one major roadblock still existed: spending cryptocurrency is a bit of a challenge. Uphold also could step in on this front, offering conversion systems to switch the cryptocurrency back to its more useful fiat form, even as more places are starting to accept cryptocurrency.

There is a certain value in getting paid in cryptocurrency, especially for those who are willing to take chances. It almost works like a set-aside investment plan for one of the riskiest investments of the 21st century so far. Given the increasing backlash at the bank level for people buying cryptocurrency—some credit cards actually won’t process for crypto transactions any more at last report—being able to get in on this investment at the employer level might be some workers’ only option.

It’s a risk, make no mistake, and there will be those who both want and don’t want to take risks like that. Uphold is just meeting a need as best it can, which is the nature of business. How it all ends up, though, is anyone’s guess.

Full article available here.

Image taken from Payment Week.