San Diego based cryptocurrency wallet provider AirBitz was featured on ABC’s 10 News as the local news network reported on companies in the city accepting and paying workers with bitcoin and how the workers “never see a paycheck.”
AirBitz launched in 2014 with founder Paul Puey creating a secure and simple wallet service with an added business directory. Airbitz had started its directory with 3,200 listings and Puey’s team believes the currency is the future.
All ten Airbitz employees are paid in bitcoin, and Puey says “no one receives a paycheck.” Puey tells the news team how the digital currency can be easily converted to dollars with a fee or people can purchase gift cards with them. However, the wallet founder feels conversion will no longer be necessary in the future as bitcoins will someday be traded directly for commodities.
Puey tells 10 News:
"It'll be bitcoin to eggs and bitcoin to chickens and bitcoin to whatever commodity you wish to purchase."
Bitcoin is growing in the city with a handful of businesses accepting the currency now. AirBitz’s own directory shows 25 merchants in the surrounding area. One of these companies who accepts Bitcoin is SD3D Printing, a new 3D printing facility located in Miramar, which was also featured in the broadcast. It specializes in design, development, and finish work with its state of the art “print farm.” and creates gadgets “out of thin air,” according to 10 News.
Last year, another San Diego-based channel KPBS News aired a broadcast about merchants in the city who accept the digital currency at the time when one bitcoin was worth roughly US$820. The episode featured an interview with Downtown Johnny Brown’s restaurant and a craft beer bar that accepts the cryptocurrency. When asked by KPBS why they started accepting it, owner Sean Cole said his business partner got him into bitcoin. “When we realized that there was a population out there using bitcoin, which convert readily to U.S. Dollars, we said why not and started accepting two weeks ago,” he explained.