Austrian Labour Law: Is Crypto-Salary A Thing?

To mint NFT art, you need to have enough cryptocurrency in your wallet (and even more to buy it). A successful NFT artist could then also pay his or her studio assistants in cryptocurrency from the proceeds of the sales. Cryptocurrency therefore plays an obvious part in a blockchain-based business. But is this also true from an employment law perspective? Can or should remuneration be paid in a cryptocurrency? Let's take a closer look at this question by examining the interface between the crypto world and the physical world from an Austrian employment law perspective.¹

Austrian employment law does not explicitly define the term. Case law, however, regards as "remuneration" which the employer grants the employee in return for providing services. "Remuneration" therefore not only includes the regular salary, but also other (non-regular) payments and can generally be split into cash remuneration (Geldbezüge) and remuneration in kind (Sachbezüge).