I think there will be multiple competing realities in the future of work. Unfortunately, I don’t think a Bitcoin-powered future of work will feature highly in my country.
Singapore’s currency is rather robust. The Monetary Authority of Singapore actively discourages people from investing in cryptocurrencies (yes, Bitcoin is lumped together with the shitcoins haha) because they are viewed as volatile, speculative assets.
On the ground, we recently had a power move in which a bill payment platform called AXS partnered with a crypto payment platform called Triple A to let us pay for our bills with Bitcoin. But because of the way Bitcoin is framed here, I doubt many people will be taking advantage of it because even when they buy Bitcoin, it is with the intention of earning quick bucks in the future. ($100k Bitcoin, anyone? 🚀)
If Singaporeans don’t spend their sats, I doubt companies like Bitwage will want to make inroads into our country and provide an option of us receiving our wages in Bitcoin. I also don’t think my government will allow for this anytime soon because our central bank is actively developing our own CBDC.
Zooming out a little, I think even if cryptocurrencies were to be infused into the future of work, Ethereum will play a dominant rule. Already, there have been reports of how Ethereum attracts more new users these days than Bitcoin. Also it seems that there are more long-term holders of Ethereum than Bitcoin. When Ethereum sorts its shit out and lowers its gas fees, perhaps people may want to be paid in Ethereum.
A report some years back revealed that most crypto investors in Singapore hold ETH, not BTC. I don’t know exactly why we like ETH as a people, though. Haha
Let’s face it. ETH L2s like Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon are more popular than BTC’s equivalent, Liquid. Of course I shouldn’t be comparing apples with oranges - but given that even governments have taken to using Polygon in their projects, I feel that the future of work with Bitcoin isn’t at all bright.
I do have expectations that crowdsourcing platforms like Fiverr will allow gig workers to receive their remuneration in sats in future. I set myself a goal of earning 5000 sats per day and am reasonably confident that I will meet it.
My two sats’ worth!