Thoughts on using Strike to pay bills \ stacker news ~bitcoin

pull down to refresh

5629 sats \ 41 comments \ @j7hB75 11 Dec bitcoin

As many of you have already seen, Strike recently announced Strike Bill Pay.

Over the last few days I've thought more about the "going all in on Bitcoin" movement in this regard. I've been weighing the pros and cons of it all and here are my findings and concerns.

Disclaimer: I'm a Strike customer. This is not financial advice. This is my first actual post. Be nice. Ha.

💰️ Fees

Note I fully understand that Strike is a business and has to make money in order to pay employees, infrastructure costs, etc. I'm not discounting this premise at all. I'm merely outlining the fees involved with going all in on Bitcoin using Strike.

Fee Tiers (as of December 2024)

👉️ Note: Your fee will go down the more you use Strike for purchases as well as sales of Bitcoin.

Direct Deposit If you use the direct deposit feature, you can allocate a certain percentage to Bitcoin or fiat. If you choose Bitcoin, then you will be charged a fee for purchasing Bitcoin at your fee level.

Paying Bills If you pay bills using Strike, this will count as selling Bitcoin and will be subject to fees at your fee level.

Taxes

Note I realize this is a controversial topic. I expect the usual debate and backlash by even mentioning taxes. Tread lightly.

In some countries, selling Bitcoin is considered a taxable event. So, when you pay bills with Strike, understand that you're incurring a taxable event. This taxable event can be subject to short-term or long-term capital gains tax based on the cost basis method you use when filing taxes. Delving further into this is outside the scope of this post, but feel free to do your own research and/or consult a tax professional.

Here is a screenshot of a spreadsheet that Jack Mallers shared in his most recent video from The Money Matters Podcast that shows an example of fees and tax obligations over a year by going all in on Bitcoin using Strike:

You can see that fees and taxes can stack up. However, not sure how some of those figures are negative, but I digress.

Here is the outcome of using Strike to go all in and pay bills versus holding in a bank account or HYSA:

Jack mentioned he would open source or share this spreadsheet so the audience could play around with it. I eagerly await for that chance.

💲 Fee Saving Tips

I currently use direct deposit but elect to have it be deposited as fiat. I then leverage the recurring purchase feature to save on fees when purchasing Bitcoin. I could see using this strategy instead of directly buying Bitcoin with direct deposit.

📈 Pros

Bull Markets During a bull market, if I'm depositing all of my paychecks into Strike as Bitcoin, then I'm actively fighting inflation by cutting my costs. This is an obvious win.

Faster Accumulation If you're not affected so much by bear markets, then this is great as you'll be able to accumulate more sats over time.

Bitcoin Standard You shift your mentality more towards a Bitcoin Standard by being paid in Bitcoin and paying for things in Bitcoin (kind of). I get that you're leveraging fiat rails to pay bills by using Strike, BUT you're also accumulating more sats in the process and fighting inflation. Yes, Darth, we all want our favorite local vendors to accept BTC and that takes time and perseverance. We all hope to get there one day. 😀

📉 Cons

Budgeting I use YNAB to budget and keep track of expenses. So, when it comes to going all in on Bitcoin this throws a wrench in things. I'm not quite sure how I would tackle this using YNAB and Strike to save and pay bills.

Bear Markets Sure, going all in on Bitcoin and paying bills from Strike is great during a bull market, but what happens when we're in a bear market? That mortgage payment might not be possible if you lost 30-50% of your paychecks over the month.

Fees As you saw above, fees can stack up and in a bear market it hurts even more.

I suppose it's easy for Jack to really push for using Bill Pay with Strike, but I can only assume he's got most things paid off and only needs to pay off his credit cards monthly for discretionary costs (food, utilities, HOA, etc.) You're mileage is going to vary heavily based on your income, bills, lifestyle, time preference, etc.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'm curious on your thoughts on this matter and whether it's worth going all in on Bitcoin with Strike when fees, taxes, and bears can really put a damper on things for the common folk.

view all related items

182 sats \ 15 replies \ @Lux 11 Dec

I'm curious on your thoughts

Not censorhip resistant, not unconfiscatable, not owned, not responsable, not Bitcoin.

Convenient.

0 sats \ 14 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 11 Dec

yes! we have to admit that it's a good gateway for many people, not ideal.

22 sats \ 13 replies \ @Lux 11 Dec

gateway for what? paying taxes?

80 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Dec

10 sats \ 11 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 11 Dec

Strike has brought thousands of people to bitcoin. As I said in the previous comment, it's not ideal.

101 sats \ 10 replies \ @Lux 11 Dec

Strike has brought thousands of people to debt slavery

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 11 Dec

If some of these thousands educate themselves and follow the right path, that's a victory for me.

5 sats \ 8 replies \ @Lux 11 Dec

Thats not convenient, they don't want that, they want to pay taxes

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 11 Dec

all of them ?

view replies

76 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 11 Dec

You can see that fees and taxes can stack up. However, not sure how some of those figures are negative, but I digress.

Doesn't the capital gains tax also imply if you lose money, you can deduct that from your taxes?

I'm curious on your thoughts on this matter

I'd like to keep my fiat and bitcoin accounting separate. I also use YNAB and "Bitcoin" is simply a monthly budget in there.

I think Strike is awesome because of the set-and-forget nature of the recurring purchases that are free after one week. I had to adjust them a few times because I ran out of my bitcoin budget at the end of the month and then they got disabled and I had to start paying fees for a week again but I think I now found a good balance between daily purchases and still having enough for dips.

It also has a very clean interface for which I am willing to pay a significantly higher fee compared to other exchanges for smash buys.

But the bills feature isn't for me.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 11 Dec

CGT is theft because it motivates the governments to create inflation and harvest more taxes. You will always pay more than you offset with losses, that is how the system is designed. Bitcoin is our escape hatch from the prison.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 11 Dec

Doesn't the capital gains tax also imply if you lose money, you can deduct that from your taxes?

Tax loss harvesting

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 11 Dec

Of course, that's common sense. In Portugal you can use past losses for two years, of course you can only use the same loss once.

52 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 11 Dec

I think it's amazing.

I'd been looking for a Bitcoin bill pay service for a while, glad to see it being offered by strike. I'm looking to live on a Bitcoin standard, and strike just made it a lot easier. Get paid in Bitcoin, throw bill money into strike, rest of it goes on a lightning node and hardware wallets.

Don't care if it maximizes the amount I stack, I've already gone through the strike kyc process, so I don't care if the state tracks my bill payments.

Just want to live on Bitcoin. I get paychecks direct deposited into cash app as 100% Bitcoin, been doing since the feature was rolled out. Next step on the Bitcoin standard journey is using a service like bitwage to get Bitcoin sent directly to a hardware wallet or my start9 instead of using cash app. Then it'll be finding a job that will just pay me in Bitcoin without the middle men, then hopefully merchant adoption replaces my need for strike.

I figure I'll be living off this stuff in a really sovereign way in about 2-3 years. Nowadays I need to use a bunch of services, but I'm confident that the number will dwindle as time moves forward.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @Shugard 11 Dec

This article is fabulous! I am thinking about using Jusin Strike for payments as well. Itls already my go-to app to buy bitcoins.

Is there a way to get a blank version of the Excel spreadsheet?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @j7hB75 OP 11 Dec

Thanks! The spreadsheet is supposedly going to be released by Strike or Jack Mallers sometime in the future.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @DesertDave 12 Dec

Great information. I have been considering having my wife sign up for strike since she handles all the bills. Great first post..keep it up!

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @j7hB75 OP 12 Dec

Thanks!

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 11 Dec

Hmm it’s getting more and more tempting to try!

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @j7hB75 OP 11 Dec

Agree. I might have to do a trial run and report back on my experience!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 12 Dec

Ha please do just listened to Mallers and Pysch and it sounds epic. Maybe if I have time over the holidays I’ll try. I’m busy trying to piece together a Lego Mindstorm for my son for Christmas

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @LowK3y19 11 Dec

So do you have to take note for taxes when you pay your bills? Or does it not count as selling cuz it’s still as fiat when it hits the account?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @j7hB75 OP 11 Dec

Depends on how you pay bills using Strike. You have the option to solely pay using Bitcoin. If you pay using Bitcoin, that counts as a sale and that creates a taxable event.

However, if you pay using fiat, then that's not a taxable event.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 11 Dec

What do you mean by going all in? Liquidate all your fiat for BTC? I feel it’s hard for us to respond appropriately if we don’t understand your intent clearly
It seems that YNAB is a habit that has been ingrained into you. Should you embark on this path, how troublesome would it be for you to convert all your payments from sats to fiat so that you can update your YNAB app accordingly? Will it be too onerous for you? I assume you have subscribed to this app.

I feel that you don’t have to attempt to pay all bills at once. Take baby steps and pivot according to how these iterations turn out. Personally I don’t keep record of my income and expenditure. That’s why I could just enjoy the adrenaline rush when I paid my insurance n utility bills with my earnings from Million Sats Madness. Currently, I use the sats I earn here to buy grocery and food takeout vouchers from Bitrefill and The Bitcoin Company. I can assure you that spending sats just hits differently.

My two days’ worth

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @j7hB75 OP 11 Dec

What do you mean by going all in? Liquidate all your fiat for BTC? I feel it’s hard for us to respond appropriately if we don’t understand your intent clearly

By going all in, I mean converting all my paychecks into Bitcoin moving forward.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 11 Dec

I've been thinking about using strike too. I may jump on it.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 11 Dec

Do you know if this is available for Strike users in Australia? It's not for me, but I think it would be great for a bitcoin noob.

70 sats \ 0 replies \ @a40ecaacec 11 Dec

As far as I understood, the system Strike currently uses for Bill Pay only supports USA-based bank payments. This presents a problem for those in the EU, where we primarily use card payments. As a result, you can’t simply connect to a bank API to manage your payments. Well, you could, with some banks, but the experience is horrible.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Skipper 15 Dec

Strike has KYC.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 12 Dec

Not something I would use but that's because I feel like my stack is too small and spending it on bills wouldn't feel right to me.

the cap gains and stuff would also put me off, but I was listening to Jack on his recent talk with Preston Pysh and apparently, they make the tax reporting easy enough that it's a non-issue. Then again, I don't ever intend on paying cap gains on my btc, the gov can fuck off.

I like Jack, although I think when he says he lives on a btc standard it's kind of not true really, he just spends on credit card then converts to fiat to pay the credit card bills.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ProofOfWorkFitness 15 Dec

Yeah but he explained the context because we just are not there yet and it's too inconvenient to live off gift cards

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Manikese 11 Dec

If Strike setup Bill Pay as a service, I pay him Sats and he pays my bill, then I would be all in. But because they sell Bitcoin, then give you US dollars, then pay the bill, it doesn’t make sense to use it. I would also not use it in a bear market, unless I am retired (I have ways before that happens Lol).

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @ChrisS 11 Dec

You can pay bills directly from your bitcoin balance now. Dollars never touch your account.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ProofOfWorkFitness 15 Dec

I wish they would do something like where there's an instantaneous purchase of Bitcoin and then selling to Fiat or something so there's no capital gains or very minimal. I'm not sure how that would work but I like your idea too.