Topic: Can Bitcoin help to balance salaries across the world? - page 2. (Read 888 times)

I agree with this one, cost of living of a country and GDP will determine the minimum wage. The inequality that we seen in how different people from different country got paid might actually happen because of the differences in the living cost, for example 10$ in some country in Asia will get you 3 times meal in a day compared to America, the minimum wage there is far lower than in America, but that's enough to pay for the daily necessities.

This inequality also what people from West side of the globe has been utilized to travel to most Asian and African country for cheaper price

Your idea seems good for freelancers and for those who getting paid in bitcoin but not suitable for the platforms and companies that are paying. For paying in bitcoins company should hold bitcoins and there is fluctuation in btc price and when the price is low and market is red the company will face huge and due to this the employee can face delays in their salaries.

If I understood you correctly, then such an approach is still very unlikely to be able to correct the situation with salaries in the world. The fact is that each country is located in its own location, with its own climate, economy and history, and all this forms the quantitative value of salaries.
And even if we change the method of calculation to Bitcoins, this will not change much. After all, salaries are calculated from many factors.

I'm correcting you as you requested, because that's not what I meant

What I mean is mainly geographical differences, not differences regarding the quality of a work. Experience in a certain field is of course an item which can add value to a work, and thus I'm perfectly fine with an experienced worker having a higher salary and/or price (when talking about freelance work) than a newbie.

Legal tender is not necessary. Legal tender can help for that process because it forces everybody to accept BTC. But this acceptance can also happen without a legal tender status. Take Venezuela in the hyperinflation period, or Argentina a few years ago, where people were eager to receiver their salary in Bitcoin. However these periods were too short and the phenomenon, above all in Argentina, only limited to certain professions - and the USDT was more popular than Bitcoin.

The crucial factor is that goods must be priced in Bitcoin by merchants, and not "in the local currency or in USD converted to Bitcoin values". The condition for that is a relatively stable Bitcoin, which makes risk for merchants who price their products in Bitcoin manageable.

obviously for it to work in a physical setting like within the country that's not like a freelancing job, it has to be that bitcoin has been accepted as a legal tender first in that region. for the freelancing jobs, it has a lot of advantages mostly for people that are residing in places where their exchange rate is very bad while comparing it to the dollar. the unite of bitcoin would have been an issue but since its mostly related to the dollar, that's already sorted out and if after receiving your pay you plan on converting from bitcoin to dollar and then to your local currency, though it might take a lot of time when you're in need of cash unlike when the payment medium is in your local currency, but the volatility of bitcoin and the difference in exchange rate will still serve to your own advantage.

I really hate hierarchy.

It's really weird someone should being paid higher just because he already spent more years, but both of beginner and senior have a same workload, same job desk, same results etc. These seniors aren't fair though, sometime they will take a credit from the beginners' works in order to make him looks better. Imagine you work hard, your senior claim your work and you receive lower than your seniors.

It would make a base salary but that's only going to hold online. It's not going to translate across the entire country which they are in, because their governments cannot sustain such rates yet with their current economies.

It is already happening without Bitcoin to an extent in the form of freelancing companies like Upwork and Fiverr - those just use the dollar instead of Bitcoin, and most freelancers would make the same conversion anyway when dealing with Bitcoin.

They are open to technology and they are never allergic to the development of the times so that the lives of the people there also adapt faster. But to integrate payments using bitcoin in general it is still not possible because it is limited by the applicable rules. Except for some individuals who try to make purchases independently using bitcoin and that does not only happen in developed countries and even some people who live in developing countries also do this kind of thing.

In the future nothing is impossible because anything can happen and even when going back when the payment system using fiat currency was introduced it was also considered a taboo for the ancients. But the process took its course and of course was reinforced by some other reasons which were much more rational so that people at that time accepted it.

Now it can never be guaranteed how the payment system using bitcoin can be implemented globally. There are many restrictions that may not be able to be implemented especially for now every country has a legal framework regarding the payment system using fiat currency.

You are talking about bitcoin exactly as you would talk about the global reserve currency, or in fact any of the hundreds of other currencies that already exist. For all the hype that you may find in these forums, it actually creates extra barriers for the average consumer and they may not be interested in going through hoops or paying unknown fees when wanting to spend their money. You do have to be somewhat technically minded to have your own wallet or otherwise you are relying on exchanges, which is just the same as many bank accounts already out there. Anyone is free to accept their wages right now in bitcoin, but it doesn't mean that they want to do that.

Yes receiving salaries in Bitcoin will be a welcome development because every transaction of how salaries are sent to individuals will be visible in the blockchain but making comparisons about each persons salary is not necessary since works and the nature of services rendered are different and there is no way every one can earn same salary as regards to your statement about striking a balance in inequality that's if I didn't misinterpret you because each jobs are paid according to ranks, levels, profession and the work load of the job so there is no way that there's gonna be a balance in salary payments just like some of us are representing signature campaigns in the forum, payments differs according to ranks so it is in other jobs as well be it physical jobs or online jobs but if i get you wrongly you can still let me understand.

Correct me if I'm wrong, what I could conclude from your explanation is how to make a global salary standard for various jobs all over the word, so it could help us in establishing same level salary for people around the world, especially in digital work, isn't it?

Well, for people who make money online, especially in beginner level, for them, this sounds like a good idea, but professionals who has worked for years and has honed their skills might disagree with this idea. My defend is because professional highly put their value in time and efforts to gain and maintain their reputation in their works, thus that's what makes their works are considered as more valuable or their works are seen as extraordinary. I wouldn't say that beginner freelancer are doing less excellent or less valuable works, but to gain and maintain reputation might take years and tiresome efforts.

I believe that reaching to a full bitcoin world is literally impossible so these type of talks make no sense at all. What we should be considering instead is how much b2c could benefit from this, because online b2c world is major, it's incredibly big, look at amazon for example and that's just one website, sure the biggest one but still just one website, imagine every website like that, every ecommerce website, every place you can buy something, has crypto payment option, imagine how big that would be.

Instead of trying to balance the budget of everyone, we could just focus on b2c for crypto and suddenly we would actually have a greater result for sellers, because those sellers are not all from the same nation, and ecommerce is a global thing. This way you are opening every nation to every other nation and suddenly that could actually help with smaller nations to get a good amount of profit. We can finally see some hidden gems from other nations to grow.

You can always convert your Bitcoin or USDT to any currency you want, there's no problem at all. If there are employees that complain if they receive less in Bitcoin and propose to pay in USDT, the employers can just fire him and replace with the new one because there are many unemployed people out there.

And it comes a problem where people in your countries don't accept Bitcoin, if you sell your Bitcoin in centralized exchange or P2P, it force you to use banks service to receive your fiat and then there's no difference whether you receive in Bitcoin or fiat.

I agree about your point but here I want to give some details as this idea can be implemented but in developed countries because they are having well organized system which is helping their peoples for having use of advance technology and also mostly now they are having debit/credit cards rarely peoples are using case, so this is good for them their legal tender is strong about bitcoin because they are understanding all things related to this and their governments are also bringing policies for the development and improvement of their peoples lives.

In rest of the world, it's not going to work because we are having peoples not well organized, and their system is also not helpful with too many countries are having restrictions with we have no time frame about having things settled, and we will be having some good change for the peoples and their system with I personally love to have this system, but it's not going to be implemented in our country even in next few years.

As annoying as it may seem, volatility is one of the many spectacular qualities of Bitcoin as we have it now. Bitcoin without volatility, I think many of us wouldn’t have been hodlers today and should we have a high predictability to it, a lot of people would have been about taking profit and investing these profit in some other gainful investments out there like real estates and acquiring properties.
I would agree with you that, it doesn’t get to balance off salaries as that wasn’t its purpose but, when it comes to ensuring free flow of business and by passing several protocols to get deals done, the roll of Bitcoin would be so much of a facilitator to this reality.

Nice to read a reasoned and intelligent response from the author of the topic ! And understanding of the mass of problems that can not be solved by bitcoin. On the other hand - realizing the problem is half of the solution

In addition to the above nuances and problems, I would name one more - the lack of mass recognition of bitcoin as a means of payment or legal tender in most countries of the world. What do I mean by that ? So far, unfortunately or fortunately (we can't realize it yet), the bitcoin received by an ordinary worker will have to be ... yes yes yes yes, you guessed it - converted into fiat, local currency that can be used to buy milk, bread, meat and other everyday goods. And there begins the issues of commissions, deductions, “affiliate fees”, in a word, the loss of some part of the received value.

US is home to many big techs and what other countries does is from there own reference. So when we say Bitcoin should be use as global measure for freelancing, is Bitcoin generally accepted in the US? Another question is that is Bitcoin generally accepted globally for this measure to be taken into consideration? I'm not sure if this are really going to happen soon but if for instance US start this measure, I'm pretty sure other people will follow the same pattern.

Another challenge I think that might really affect this standardization is Bitcoin volatility, there are many companies that don't want to receive Bitcoin as value because of this. There is benefits in this volatility but honestly the other way round wouldn't be palatable for many tech guys especially when you have much to pay with your income.

This idea may be difficult to implement because some people are used to using fiat currency as a way to receive their salary or make purchases. Some lay people would find it difficult to accept a salary paid in bitcoin. But if this idea was put forward to people who like bitcoin then perhaps they would rationally support it. We also hear that some places are now using bitcoin as a salary payment, although the scope is still relatively small. About bitcoin becoming more stable and powerful I doubt this can happen, but some people would probably accept the idea much more easily.

But for those of us in the forum, the price fluctuations are what make bitcoin the best choice and I doubt that when prices become more stable bitcoin will be one of the best choices for some. The idea will certainly be an innovation and it is possible that in the future it will be used as a step of choice.

With the high number of unbanked population in some countries, Bitcoin could be a good medium for providing accessible financial services. Some persons have to travel a long distance just to have access to banking facilities where their salaries have been deposited. Paying workers with Bitcoin can bridge this gap.

Some of these unbanked populations have to pay high service charges if they want to have access to their salaries through middlemen. Bitcoin can offer cost-efficient financial services to the unbanked populace.

Using the services of some of these third-party financial services providers exposes users to the risk of scams and loss of earnings. With the secured financial services of Bitcoin fraud and scams are reduced since people now have full control of their wallets.      

Yep, already wrote about that in the thread (perhaps not in your answer specifically). However, the title of the thread is help to balance the salaries, so the "salary/price comparability" can be only one factor among many.

By the way unfortunately living costs and salary level are not always connected. In many South American countries for example supermarkets are more expensive than in Europe, housing is cheaper but not by that much to justify a difference of 4-5 times when comparing the European salary level to the South American one. So we can say that living costs are one factor among many, too. Of course another factor is the supply/demand situation - workers from a country with higher unemployment rate tend to reduce their expectations.

What I want to discuss in this thread is to identify if there are mechanisms where Bitcoin or any other global currency can help to reduce inequality: like the "sense of value" issue and transaction costs.

While I agree that we're currently not in the situation, I dispute that Bitcoin never can be a global standard for prices & salaries. I already wrote in another answer that Bitcoin could relatively soon become as stable as gold (1-1.5% 30-day volatility). This would be approximately the case in 5 years if the reduction of volatility according to the index I quoted in one of the first posts in this thread continues. In this case we would probably begin to see prices in Bitcoin. Salaries would probably take a bit longer (outside of some freelancing niches), but could eventually follow.

There are actually a lot of approaches, but all tackle only small parts of that task. Some are related to the "communication about Bitcoin", while others are more "technical".

- Promotion of Bitcoin not as "get rich quick" scheme, but as an alternative to save and as a currency, to gradually reduce too speculative expectations.
- Instead of focusing so much on bull markets and the explosive profits you could make there, people and companies could focus on the opportunities the "crypto winters" offer to get cheap coins.
- More decentralized financial products based on Bitcoin, like options.
- More use as a currency for payments, because this boosts liquidity and liquidity is a big factor contributing to stability.

Main hope in my opinion is liquidity, which depends also on "currency usage", and indirectly on scalability. Probably liquidity improvements are the reason for the long term volatility reduction (in the short term there are still spikes) we are experiencing (see again the Bitbo Volatility Index).

No. It's a purely theoretical discussion about one of possible future advantages of a "Bitcoin world" or "Bitcoin standard", the main question being if a truly global currency could help unifying the "sense of value" for work. Freelancing platforms like you mentioned can help, but with the current volatility are very likely only be able to cover some small niches.

Why? There is Lightning and there can be other second layers so technically there are relatively few barriers. The "difficulties" are all related to volatility (so see above). Spending if you can re-buy and get paid in BTC is not really a problem if the concern is about losing the opportunity to benefit from an increasing price.

Labor productivity is a good point and for sure has some influence. But it not always is the main reason for differences. If we stick to the example with the freelance computer programmer I outlined in other answers, then labour productivity would not influence the price of the work, as such contracts usually are priced "by finished work" while labour productivity is calculated by hour. And still there are often sharp differences in pricing depending on the country and sometimes even region the "worker" comes from.

So again, it's one factor but one among many. Regarding cost of living, see my answer to @Darker45 and others.

Exactly. The idea is that it could be a tool to combat some, not all of the mechanisms which produce inequality. See the word "help" in the title

This is of course true. There could be however a gradual process, where the salary balancing could first happen in urban environments and "globalized" sectors of the economy, and then trickle slowly into rural areas. In some poorer countries I know, the urban/rural differences aren't not that pronounced.

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To summarize a bit the discussion until now, I think we all agree that there are some factors determining salary inequality which can not be tackled by Bitcoin or a "global currency", at least not directly: Labour productivity, cost of living and things like infrastructure. And there's of course discrimination due to the origin of the workers often working "in the background" lowering the prices of workers of certain origin.

However, I still insist on that there are factors where it could help, mainly the "sense of value" area and transaction cost and perhaps other issues related to financial inclusion.