Pay taxes in Ohio with Bitcoin: Intitiative drives adaptation forward

After the recent continuing price slump, critics of the industry question the raison d’être of Bitcoin and Co. Little attention is paid to the progressive further development of the technology as well as to its increasing diffusion. In Ohio, companies can pay their taxes in Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.

The Wall Street Journal reports that an initiative called OhioCrypto.com has been launched in the state of Ohio in the United States of America to enable businesses to pay their taxes using digital currencies. Since today it is possible for local companies to sign up for the program and make crypto tax payments in cooperation with BitPay.

BitPay is a startup founded in 2011 in Atlanta with the mission to enable payments between companies and other industry players in crypto currencies. Once a payment has been received with Bitcoin, the amount is immediately converted into USD so that any exchange rate fluctuations do not result in a loss of the actual value of the payment. In this case, the payments in US dollars are then forwarded to the Ohio Ministry of Finance. The extreme volatility has prevented traders from accepting payments in Bitcoin and Co. so far.

With the continuing slide in the prices of almost all crypto currencies, including Bitcoin, many critics see the crypto movement as a bubble rather than a technology that is gradually entering our everyday lives and the free economy. At the moment a positive momentum is taking place, so that Bitcoin can increase its price by just 7% to just under 4,023.42 UUS. By allowing companies to pay their bills with Bitcoin, Ohio is making an important contribution to the further adaptation of using Bitcoin as a legitimate resource.

In the initiative of OhioCrypto.com, Treasurer Josh Mandel was in charge of the completion of the project. For him Bitcoin is an alternative to the current Fiat money, which will be established in the future (freely translated):

I see [Bitcoin] as a legitimate form of currency.

Behind in mind that BitPay acts as a kind of intermediary and converts crypto currencies into the dominant fiat currency, US dollars, and then forwards the amount. Unfortunately, this process does not take place directly in Bitcoin or Ethereum.