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by gnaritas 4573 days ago
If your salary is priced in USD, you're really just being paid in USD, not Bitcoin. When you're ready to accept a fixed amount of Bitcoin every pay period, then you're paid in Bitcoin.
1 comments

At the end of the day I end up with bitcoin in my account, not dollars. So what you're saying does not seem correct to me. The conversion is just a way of determining how much bitcoin I should be paid.
Your dollars are being delivered to you via Bitcoin, but your salary is designated in dollars, thus you are paid in dollars.
But dollars are not being delivered to me, that's the point. Bitcoin isn't acting as a middleman here-it's the end.

If I were your employer and decided to price your bi-weekly paycheck in terms of segways (each paycheck would be the dollar equivalent of one segway), does that mean you'd be "paid in segways"? No, you're paid in dollars.

You can't really claim someone is paid in dollars unless (1) they receive actual dollars, or (2) the thing they receive instead is guaranteed to be exchangeable for that dollar amount at any point into the future. Neither of these is true of a salary that is delivered in bitcoin, regardless of how it's priced.

> Bitcoin isn't acting as a middleman here-it's the end.

No, Employer > USD > Bitcoin > You. If you're using dollar equivalent for any reason whatsoever, then that's what you're really being paid in. Your salary is being priced in dollars, not Bitcoin.

> You can't really claim someone is paid in dollars unless (1) they receive actual dollars, or (2) the thing they receive instead is guaranteed to be exchangeable for that dollar amount at any point into the future.

Yes I can. Your employer is paying out dollars, that it's converted to something along the way is not relevant, they're paying you in dollars; you just receive something else through a middleman, in this case the Bitcoin network.

I think maybe being specific makes things easier. His pay is clearly denominated in dollars and delivered in bitcoin.

I also think "paid in dollars" mostly means the pay is denominated in dollars, but I can see that being a language usage thing.

I guess I just disagree. To me, what you are "paid in" is the thing that changes ownership from your employer to you on pay day. It seems like you are simply insisting that "paid in" is synonymous with "priced in," in which case this debate is just a matter of semantics and not actually very interesting.

Also, to begin with, this conversation was about what I am paid in, not what my employer pays out. In your last sentence it sounds like you are confusing them, or using them interchangeably. I see no reason that they should be considered the same thing.