Why can't I get paid in bitcoin? Well, I can ... in a way -- where my direct deposited paycheck goes first through an intermediary (like BitWage, GetHedge, Deel, or even Cash App, and Strike), and from that I receive bitcoin. But I'm referring to direct payment in bitcoin from my employer. No intermediary.

One reason is because my employer would need to acquire the bitcoin (with a fee), and then to hold the bitcoin until payday (causing exposure to exchange rate risk). Another reason is because their payroll accounting system has no understanding of bitcoin.

If my employer were to earn in bitcoin (i.e., revenue from customers in bitcoin), then that first issue is lessened or eliminated. They would be obtaining bitcoin at market price (or better than spot price effectively, since presumably these payment would have otherwise incurred merchant payment processing fees when customers pay using credit or debit card).

As far as the exchange rate risk in holding bitcoin, there are many options available now. They might first swap their bitcoin revenues into a stablecoin, and then right before payroll occurs buy the required amount of bitcoin from that. Or they might hedge using Kollider, or LNMarkets even. There are many options today.

But the payroll accounting is not going to change anytime soon. Since the bitcoin paid out is simply the net pay (after deductions), the payroll accounting system might not really even need to know that the payment was made in bitcoin (other than maybe some reference number to correlate the payment in bitcoin to the accounting record for the payment amount in fiat). It's definitely a change to how payroll is handled though. And few employees would probably be willing to take 100% of their pay in bitcoin, so unless there is a way to accommodate a split (i.e., where x% of my net pay (or $N worth of net pay) goes to bitcoin and the balance goes to my bank as it does today) I can't see many others wishing to be paid in bitcoin (100% of their net).

But without them receiving revenue from customers in bitcoin in the first place, there's an even lesser chance they would even consider paying in bitcoin.