The Seminole County, Florida tax collector office headed by Joel Greenberg announced today that they would begin accepting cryptocurrency payments for their services. Specifically, they will be accepting Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash through BitPay. This is a major milestone for BitPay since it is their first partnership with a government agency.
Launched in 2009, Bitcoin (BTC) is the most popular and widely-used cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of USD 150 billion and daily trading volume of several billion dollars. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was created in August 2017 by forking Bitcoin; it has all the characteristics of Bitcoin besides a protocol change which allows more transactions and lowers fees via increasing block size to 8 MB. Since it has lower transaction fees than Bitcoin, it is cheaper to use BCH as an everyday currency, hence why it’s called Bitcoin Cash. BCH has a market cap of USD 25 billion and daily trading volume in excess of USD 1 billion per day, making it the most popular cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.
The tax collection office of Seminole County will be using BitPay, which provides technology that allows merchants to easily accept cryptocurrency and convert it to USD or other fiat currencies. BitPay protects merchants from price volatility by instantly converting cryptocurrency to fiat at the time a sale occurs. This is why the tax collector chief, Joel Greenberg, is able to say he does not perceive any risk to the county from price volatility by accepting cryptocurrencies.
Accepting cryptocurrency payments actually reduces payment risk, since cryptocurrency is irreversible, unlike credit/debit card payments which can be reversed in identity theft cases, resulting in hefty chargeback fees for the merchant. Payments with Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are cryptographically secure, and transparent since all transactions are viewable in the block explorer.
The Seminole County tax collector office will be accepting cryptocurrency payments for a wide variety of services including tag, title, registration, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, hunting and fishing licenses, as well as ad valorem and non-ad valorem taxes.
The fact that cryptocurrency is being viewed and utilized as a safe alternative to cash and cards by a tax authority is a good sign that the government is becoming more open to cryptocurrency usage, and is another mile marker on cryptocurrency’s road to becoming a global currency.
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