Rob Behnke, CEO of Halborn, was seeking a cryptocurrency payroll company. Halborn, an elite blockchain cybersecurity company, is considering the option to pay employees in cryptocurrency. My research led me to meet with Chris Wade, Senior Account Executive with Bitwave, and I had an opportunity to see a demo of Bitwave’s platform which helps clients with cryptocurrency payroll transactions. The content I saw was appropriate for the CFIT meeting based on the content I had seen in previous years.
The concept is that the transactions are tracked by the actual cryptocurrency which are immediately converted to fiat currency (e.g., USD, CAD) for tax purposes. We had seen many blockchain technology presentations, but only a few on cryptocurrency. The topic was “Paying People in Bitcoin” which was chosen in part by the news of some professional athletes (e.g., NFL player Russell Okung in 2020) making part of their salaries in bitcoin in their contracts. I was curious behind the mechanics of the accounting transactions to make this happen.
Bitwave spoke at the March 2022 FEI Committee on Finance and Information Technology (CFIT) Meeting. Bitwave CEO Patrick White took us through a presentation that provided people with a background on cryptocurrency transactions and the dynamics of linking cryptocurrency with payroll transactions. He reviewed the significant use cases:
There was a good discussion differentiating the centralized systems (e.g., banks to move money on your behalf) that most people are familiar with to decentralization (e.g., peer to peer transactions without the need for centralized authority). Decentralization is major philosophy difference between those who support cryptocurrency and those do not.
He reviewed the pros of payroll in cryptocurrency such as the speed at which transactions are settled which is nearly instantly compared to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT). Cryptocurrency transactions are fast, direct without the need for a bank and could potentially rise in value like an investment. The cons of cryptocurrency transaction are market volatility, not being universally accepted and not easily blended into the existing legal money flow systems.
Patrick presented a timeline of the recent cryptocurrency events that signal a more mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency. Three famous companies holding bitcoin are MicroStrategy, Tesla and MassMutual Life Insurance. Many major banks (e.g., Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi, US Bank, etc.) and credit card companies (e.g., Visa and Mastercard) are looking into cryptocurrency. While we did not see a demo of Bitwave’s platform, the following slide explained it:
According to the presentation, “Bitwave is the first and leading enterprise digital assets finance platform designed specifically for enterprises to help manage cryptocurrency tax, accounting and compliance.”
I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation, and it was like looking into the future. Other CFIT members also commented that they found it interesting. While some mentioned it did not apply to their role today, we could all agree that it could affect us all in the future.