Staff at an island company are receiving some or all of their hard-earned pay in cryptocurrency.

The 14-strong team at CoinCorner jumped at the opportunity to receive their salary in the new-style currencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The firm told Business News that all employees opted to allocate a portion of their salary to Bitcoin, with one member of staff taking home their full pay each month in the cryptocurrency.

Danny Scott, co-founder and chief executive at CoinCorner, said: ’It’s our belief that Bitcoin is the future of money and our mission is to make it accessible to as many people as possible.

’As one of the longest-running Bitcoin exchanges in the world, we’ve already made it quick and easy for consumers to get started with cryptocurrency and we’re now focused on helping businesses to accept Bitcoin via our new service, CoinCorner Checkout.

’It’s come full circle now as our team have welcomed the opportunity to have their salary paid in cryptocurrency.

’We hope to see this set a precedent for how other companies could manage salaries in the long-term and hope that it encourages them to try innovating by offering employees the choice to be paid in Bitcoin.’

The price of Bitcoin has seen an increase of more than 200% since the beginning of 2019.

CoinCorner, based at Victory House, Prospect Hill, Douglas, was crowned last year’s winner of the digital champions award in the Isle of Man Newspapers Awards for Excellence.

Mr Scott, who receives part of his salary in cryptocurrency, said he hoped other businesses would follow the lead and offer the chance to their employees.

This week New Zealand ruled receiving income in Bitcoin as legal.

Mr Scott said staff were free to convert their bitcoin into sterling at any point.

And there was no issue over the payment of income tax as usual.

These are busy times for the company as it plans to recruit two more members of staff.

Coincorner’s move this week grabbed the attention of the UK broadsheet The Daily Telegraph.

Each member of staff had the choice to receive the GBP equivalent of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin or XRP (cryptocurrencies currently supported by CoinCorner) to include in their monthly pay packet.

lThe Bitcoin exchange company also recently launched a first-of-its-kind Bitcoin payment gateway which allows businesses on-island and in the UK to accept Bitcoin payments and receive funds back in GBP.

Although known for big price movements, CoinCorner’s payment gateway promises no Bitcoin price risk to the businesses that use its service. When a customer makes a purchase with Bitcoin, CoinCorner instantly converts the funds to British pounds and pays the business in sterling via the UK Faster Payments Service.

CoinCorner claims that with worldwide customers and no chargebacks, Bitcoin is rapidly growing in popularity.