On Wednesday, British cryptocurrency mining company Argo Blockchain revealed that CEO Peter Wall is now the first executive of a publicly traded company to receive all of his salary in Bitcoin (BTC).
In a February operational update, the company – which trades on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker ARB – said that as of Monday, Wall began to receive his salary in the cryptocurrency and that “Any other member of the Argo team you can choose to be paid in Bitcoin for part or all of your wages. “
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Wall said the decision was obvious to Argo, which mined 129 BTC last month and currently has 599 BTC in the books.
“Actually, I woke up in the middle of the night and asked myself, ‘Why am I being paid in fiat?'” Said Wall. “’Why don’t we start paying ourselves in Bitcoin?’”
Wall pointed to NFL player Russell Okung as an additional source of inspiration. At the end of last year, certain publications reported that Okung was withdrawing a portion of his Bitcoin earnings; in fact, he was using a service to convert his salary.
In contrast, Argo is actually paying Wall in Bitcoin straight from the company’s coffers. Wall also reported “strong” employee interest and predicted “strong acceptance” of the offer. Employee salaries will continue to be expressed in fiat and the conversion rate will be calculated daily using Satstreet’s exchange rate.
Employees are not the only ones interested. Wall joked that some shareholders asked about paying dividends at BTC – a feat that may be too much of a legal obstacle to resolve – and said that some other directors at the company applauded the move.
Wall said that Bitcoin is an ideal way to receive at least part of the salary, given its usefulness as a store of value and its proven scarcity.
“There is an evolving payment structure for how people are being paid and we are happy to be at the forefront of pushing things in that direction,” he said.
He anticipates that other companies – even giants like Google – will offer cryptocurrency pay options to employees within “three to five years”.
“In the long run, there is absolutely no doubt that we will use cryptocurrencies in our daily lives in all the transactions we do every day.”