New Zealand has become the first country to legally allow wages to be paid in cryptocurrencies.
The ruling excludes the self-employed from earning incomes in digital currencies. Companies that opt to pay employees in crypto will be able to deduct tax under the country’s pay-as-you-earn income tax scheme.
The move is “another step towards governments recognizing that actually people are wanting to be paid in [crypto],” said Thomas Hulme, a solicitor at London-based law firm Mackrell Turner Garrett, according to The Financial Times. He added that the demand is proof that “some people would rather deal with their wealth in that medium.”
In other news, blockchain-based remittance service Velo is entering into the cross-border remittance market in Southeast Asia, which has seen over $65 billion is remittances each year.
“Migrant workers need a convenient remittance payment solution with fees that do not eat into their daily wages, so we launched [Velo] to facilitate this process — one that provides them with financial inclusivity and empowerment,” said Chatchaval Jiaravanon, the company’s chairman, according to Fortune.
While the average service fee for cross-border remittance services in Thailand is 15 percent, Velo said that it will charge as low as 1 percent while completing instant transfers (traditional methods can take up to five days).
And the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed a decision on approving two bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
As Bloomberg reported, decisions on both the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust and the VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust have been repeatedly put off by the SEC. The last time was back in May, when the agency put off making a decision because it wanted additional comments.
The delay does not “indicate that the Commission has reached any conclusions with respect to any of the issues involved,” the regulator said at the time.
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