Japanese Internet leader GMO Group has announced that its 4,700+ employees can start receiving part of their salaries in Bitcoin (Bitcoin) beginning in February of next year for the March pay period, Bitcoin News reported.
“The GMO Internet Group has decided to introduce a system that allows part of the salary payment to be received as bitcoin in order to promote ownership of our domestic employees’ virtual currency,” the company explained.
This option will initially only be available to employees of GMO Internet Co. Ltd but will gradually extend to the entire group, the company said in its announcement.
The minimum Bitcoin payment will initially be 10,000 yen (~$88) and the upper limit will be 100,000 yen (~$881). Each salary payment in yen will be reduced by the amount of Bitcoin payment paid, using the exchange rate at the GMO Coins exchange.
GMO also plans to spend 10 billion yen in the next few years to build a mining farm as well as to research and develop 7nm, 5nm, and 3.5nm mining chips.
“The mining business is currently preparing for the start of business beginning in January 2018,” the company said.
GMO Internet Group said it will contribute to the development of virtual currencies in the world by promoting efforts related to virtual currency throughout the group.