Big news from Japan – from March 2018, the more than 4,000 employees of GMO Internet will be able to receive part of their salaries in Bitcoin, according to a tweet from Bloomberg reporter Yuji Nakamura.

Tokyo-based GMO Internet is a group which offers online advertising, internet infrastructure, internet security and mobile entertainment. Its brokerage arm GMO Click Securities has been the world’s largest FX provider by trading volume since 2012.

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The giant company was relatively quick to get into cryptocurrency, announcing the establishment of a cryptocurrency exchange, GMO Wallet, at the beginning of 2017.

It launched a blockchain development service for customers in July, and a Bitcoin mining operation in September.

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At the time, the company said: “We believe that cryptocurrencies will develop into ‘new universal currencies’ available for use by anyone from any country or region to freely exchange ‘value,’ creating a ‘new borderless economic zone.”

Japan as a whole has also welcomed cryptocurrency with open arms. The government has granted licenses to fifteen Bitcoin exchanges, and the Tokyo financial exchange is planning to launch Bitcoin futures, à la CBOE.

In keeping with this national enthusiasm for digital money, the company stated in a press release today: “GMO Internet Group has decided to introduce a system that allows part of the salary’s payment to be received by Bitcoin in order to promote ownership of the [employees’] virtual currency.”

Needless to say, such a massive company deciding to pay employees in Bitcoin is a major step for digital money.