Accepting Bitcoin for freelance work a good idea or waste of time?

Bitcoin is very volatile right now,just read the price trends this week. (Note it has been going down) Are you going to constanly change your charges to adjust for the changes? What happens if someone pays you $50.00 for your time, than a few hours later you find your bitcoin value dropped $10. can you handle that type of loss as you convert it to cash ? What happens if they want a refund can you adust fot that if the value changes again. Until the wild fluctations stop it would be more trouble than it is currently worth, just to gain a few customers.

"Never accept wooden nickels."

If you have time to wait do it, if you want money fast don't do it

Have you read todays news? It's in a free fall.

pheonix44 I would say its good as when you are accepting any other payment ...just dont make it as a primary or only one option for customers

well bitcoin is shaky at this time you cannot say anything sure about this. But i think it is a risk taking bitcoins....

It's a good idea if you want to engage in following of the trends and trading cryptocurrencies You can accept bitcoin but my recommendation is to sell it for regular money immediately.

Well, it's not bad, but you have to learn more about crypto, as it constantly changes its value.

If you want to accept BTC, you have to use your own TOS to your clients to eliminate any exchange troubles.

Do you like to gamble? If so, you might want to accept some and see what happens. It's been a roller coaster ride. You have to be willing to risk a loss.

I wouldn't count on it to pay the rent next month or buy groceries this week. I'd limit it to a small percentage of income such as 5% or any amount that you don't need to pay the bills.

It can be a hassle, though, so you might find it not worth the extra trouble.

Rose

All of what you said in this post rings very true. My worst fear would be the value going down. It's like shorting a stock and having the price go up significantly shortly thereafter.

You should wait because bitcoin is in kind of shaking. If you want to use don't use it as primary option otherwise you might loose.

People keep saying it's volatile, but isn't this the nature of all such currency? I wouldn't expect it to just keep going up and up or stay where it's at long term.

Today's headline: "Bitcoin skids to a 13-month low, nearing $5,000" - CNBC

That's down from $20,000. Who needs it?

Not worth it... potential clients wanting to use bitcoin is way to small - notwithstanding the cost of the transaction and volatile conversion price.

It is risky to accept bitcoins, especially with this volatility.

I wouldn't touch it with someone else's ten-foot-pole.

Brent

It's a GREAT idea. Don't listen to the naysayers, crypto is here to stay and will only become bigger and more mainstream with time. Right now it's in a bear market and dirt cheap. 2019 Bitcoin will rocket past 5k by the first half of the year. Your future self will thank you.

I've always wanted a future-telling crystal ball...will you sell yours? I'll pay in BrentBux.

Brent

What's brentbux?

Some shocking answers in here. Wow.

Accept Crypto 1000% seriously. If you can have a portion of your sales as in invest in a new asset class that is here to stay, do it.

Wasn't Bartercard the first crypto?

At least once you got paid via barter you could see the value of your trade being eroded via fees and inflated pricing.

Until there is some stability with crypto you may have to follow the barter extreme pricing model to extract a return worth cashing in.

Best regards,

Ozi

Unfortunately, as much as i love the whole idea around bitcoin and actually do own a small amount i would advise against it at the moment. It looks like bitcoin is dying a slow death but the tables could turn. Nobody knows what the future holds.

Hey Pheonix44,
That is a good question. Most of the people here are correct, Bitcoin is a highly volatile asset and not directly the best choice to get paid as freelancer but I think there are some good alternatives.

Why do you not ask your clients to pay you in stable coins like Circle USD (USDC) or Stasis Euro (EURS)? When you are using stablecoins instead of bitcoins for payments, you do not have to worry about the price volatility, the price will stay close to $1 and you can easily get paid in a few seconds to minutes, the costs per transfer are less than a few cents, so super cheap too. We (Edit out ) clients.

So what can you do with the stablecoin?
You can use the stablecoin for online shopping, you can buy other crypto currencies for trading and speculation or you can convert the stablecoins back to USD or EUR and wire the funds to you regular bank account. Over the long term you probably have a better return in keeping the stablecoins and buy something nice online. You could also pay a other freelancers for their work in some other countries.

Bitcoin sparked a new form of internet money, it failed as currency but it created the path for new types of internet currencies.

It actually depends for ex if you do have a good income then you can receive some money in BTC and hold it for long time because in long run it willl go up. you can say its internet gold.
But if you are just earning residual income then due to high volatilty you may face problems.

The great thing about Bitcoin-specific sites is that you'll be seeing opportunities that aren't posted anywhere else. You may be getting compensated with cryptocurrency, but there's nothing cryptic about the simplicity of doing work you'll be paid for within hours of completion.

I would accept it if someone wanted to pay with it. You don't have to worry much about the volatility. You cash it out as soon as you receive it and it's the same as any other payment form. Just open an account at an exchange like Circle where you can instantly cash out.

If you've seen a spike in people wanting to pay with bitcoin in the past 12 months or so, that's because it has been plummeting for quite a few months now, so some BTC owners are scared and wanting to dump their BTC before they lose more money, just like people get scared when a stock plummets and they want to get rid of the stock.

You have to understand that the vast majority of BTC owners are not in it for the long-haul. They just bought BTC because they heard it was the trendy thing to do. But they get scared when it plummets...so they want to dump it. Some might think that dumping it by using it to pay for a service or product is better than exchanging it so they ask service providers and product sellers to take it in exchange for product/services.



Unless you are a risk-taker and you know how it all works, don't become a BTC dumping ground just to get work.

If they wan to get rid of their BTC, let them go to any BTC exchange site and change it to their local currency at a loss...then pay you

I dabble in BTC as a speculative move and also trade a bit from time to time, but wouldnt dream of using it for client fees at this time. If they wanted to pay me with a stablecoin thats a different story.

What if the rate of your business overall increased due to being able to accept this form of payment? What if there were particular clients who had tons of business, but due to restrictions in their country could only use bitcoin or some other form of cryptocurrency?

If you work with a lot of international clients it may be worth considering. As other people have mentioned, it is volatile so you either want to decide you want to invest in it long term or cash out quickly so the value of it does not change.

That said, if you are getting paid from someone from a different country bitcoin can be a good way to avoid international exchange fees and currency changes.

Here's a question. What if some clients are willing to pay extra as a form of hedge against the volatility of the currency?

That has already been answered...

Could also work the other way around. What if t hat $60 by the time I convert it turns into $93? What if you're a little savvy about understanding the volatility of bitcoin and understand how to hedge against some of the risk? Second to last poster came off as closed minded so no real point in addressing him. Your example though is interesting. This would be an extreme fluctuation and as others have stated if I wanted to protect against the risk I could just convert it right away.

Bitcoin is decentalized that is why many people want to use it as payment for products and services.

It is good that you also give options like this to your customers. The more options you have, the more you can gain customers.

In short term, you will probably have to lose some because of its price volatility.

However, if you come to think of other people using their own money to invest in bitcoin, you only accept it through your services.

Long term, bitcoin and crypto has a huge opportunity.

Personally I am always paying for my freelancers with btc, it's fast and easy.
It's a bit harder to find people who can do the work and accept btc as a payment, but for me it's working well.

save (X) amount of money by hodling the bitcoin

Spend (Y) amount of money by leveraging your cash for required living expenses

I mean it's not going to net you a bunch of extra business unless you're a crypto developer. With that said, if you believe in project you should support it by accepting it as payment. I'm personally a fan of Monero and offer 15% off for anybody who pays with it.

Biggest disadvantage of bitcoin there prices are not stable, so it is better to stick to your basic mode of payment methods .

What about charging a little more for bitcoin as a hedge against volatility in the wrong direction? On the off chance that it does go up this could still be beneficial or at least offset the times when it went in the wrong direction. I'm talking about the additional amount I'd require. If I consider the possibility of it going up at times and capitalize on it, then wouldn't I still be good?

Bitcoin is not a currency. It's a speculative investment at best, it has absolutely no underlying value that it can be tied to.

I want to be paid in actual real dollars ... nothing else.

Does't that describe paper money in general?

Backed by the US government isn't the same as the paper money actually having something backing it that has value, such as gold or silver the way it was in the past. It's currency because we accept it as such. If tomorrow we decided to say that acorns were currency and accepted it as such what would be the difference?

You understand what I'm saying though right? If s*** ever hit the fan then paper money itself would have little value. You'd need basic essentials and trading or exchanging anything that has base value for it would be a form of currency exchange.

I'll trade you bullets for food.