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Company pays assoCiates with Crypto CurrenCy
Locally Based Start-Up Begins Paying Associates in Crypto
The company will also offer employees a Bitcoin 401K
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Zoe Landi Fontana, The Weekly Journal
The Díaz Fontánez group, a Puerto Rico-based international company, is offering its associates payment in Tether, a cryptocurrency hosted on the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchain.
The Puerto Rico company was founded by Ariel Díaz Ríos and his wife Andria Fontánez, with associates in Colombia, Spain, the US, and Puerto Rico. Payment in cryptocurrencies would benefit those who need to convert from dollars into their local currency. In addition to staying relevant and up-to-date
The purpose of paying in stablecoin is to bring stability to the payments… Receiving stablecoins, a contractor can convert (the payment) into any other cryptocurrency that they want to.
with trends in the labor market, Díaz says that he wants to minimize the costs that are generated by every transaction that requires converting currencies.
In response to the instability of cryptocurrencies in general, the group will pay in stable coins. Transactions will be logged in the blockchain, a system that allows for secure transactions to occur between people anywhere in the world without the need for intermediaries.
“The purpose of paying in stablecoin is to bring stability to the payments. Right now, the crypto world is pretty volatile. Receiving stablecoins, a contractor can convert (the payment) into any other cryptocurrency that they want to,” explained Díaz in conversation with THE WEEKLY
JOURNAL.
“It’s also easier for them to convert from crypto to the local currency. Using the system Binance, which is recognized in most Latin American countries, they would receive the money in crypto with very low transaction fees. It allows them to have more money in their hands at the end of the day.” Associates’ reactions have been mainly positive.
The company offered seminars to inform them of the benefits of crypto, but the choice remains their own. According to Díaz, each week, more associates become interested.
A Bitcoin 401K
The company’s employees can not receive payment in cryptocurrency, but they will soon have the option to opt-into a Bitcoin 401K using the platform Bit-Wave. “Compared to even the riskiest 401K bucket, a typical 401K wouldn’t have the yields that bitcoin has had,” Díaz said of the possible rewards of investing in Bitcoin. “We want to stay ahead of the game and would like to be attractive as an
In fact, employer brand. We’re still a start-up, so right now we can’t provide things like tuition reimbursement, but with the The company’s employees are not able to receive payment in agility that we do have, we want to stay ahead in terms of tech-oriented initiatives,” Díaz explained. cryptocurrency, but they will soon have the option to optinto a Bitcoin 401K using the platform Bit-Wave. Other Benefits So, what benefits do this brings his business? The Díaz Fontánez Group isn’t a recipient of the Law 60 tax exemptions, so their investments and holdings in crypto are still taxed as applicable. “It adds to our value proposition as a company—we can attract more talent, especially among Latin American freelancers,” Díaz said. And for those who would traditionally need to convert from dollars into their local currency, payment in crypto means they end up with a less diluted paycheck. The Díaz Fontánez group isn’t forcing crypto technology on any of their employees, but by providing the option to receive payments or invest retirement savings using cryptocurrencies, they make sure that interested employees can continue to grow with the rapidly changing business and financial environment—if they want to be on the cutting edge of it all, the Díaz Fontánez group will get them there.
Transformation requires moving away from a traditional manufacturingbased economy
Juan A. Hernández, The Weekly Journal
It is a norm among most, if not all, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that their stated missions must be inspirational in nature, but accessible in practice. Foundation for Puerto Rico (FPR) is no exception.
In the general sense of its statement, FPR’s mission is “to transform Puerto Rico”, using new tools and strategies. Hence, its motto: “there is no future in rebuilding the past.”
“Everybody knows about Puerto Rico’s economic crisis now, but when we were starting out 10 years ago, our first assessment was that we had to move from the more traditional manufacturing-based economy and maybe get involved in innovationdriven exports –and that included everything from technology to digital content, to expertise of different sources… there is a wide spectrum of alternatives,” said Jon Borshow, founder and CEO of Foundation for Puerto Rico. According to Borshow, the first step was to build up an entrepreneurial ecosystem by promoting other instances that would in turn contribute in the development of the desired ecosystem. So, in the beginning FPR helped in the “re-incubation” of Grupo Guayacán (a nonprofit organization committed to the education and development of entrepreneurs), and helped in the early stages of the Puerto Rico Science Trust.
Other instances promoted by FPR were Parallel18, Piloto 151, and Colmena66.
“The entrepreneurial system of today has already resulted in the creation of thousands of very high-paying jobs… and these are not manufacturing jobs. They are knowledge-based jobs in hundreds of export-driven entrepreneurial companies that did not exist at the time we [FPR] began,” Borshow argued.
But early on, FPR creator realized that these kinds of start-ups would take a long time to offset the shrinking of Puerto Rico’s local economy.
“The question was; what to do for the short to medium term to create jobs and opportunities for ordinary people who do not have a high level technological education?” he mused.
From Innovation To Visitors Economy
Back in 2013, Borshow recalled googling the World Tourism and Travel Council (WTTC) to find out the number of travelers around the world.
“According to WTTC statistics, 1.2 billion people traveled across international borders every year –that was 10 years ago. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico received less than 3 million visitors per year. So, I asked myself: why we are not receiving more tourists?” the FPR executive questioned.
The answer to the question came in the form of a realization: Puerto Rico was offering the same thing every other destination in the region was offering… sun and beaches. “We were undifferentiated. So, we then concluded that if we started differentiating ourselves in terms of our natural and cultural assets, which other destinations in the Caribbean
do not have in the same proportion, tourism would increase,” Borshow said.
Realizing that Puerto Rico’s tourism public policy changes every so often with each change of administration, led FPR to propose empowering a non-governmental organization to be in charge of marketing Puerto Rico professionally and provide continuity to its strategy. Enter Discover Puerto Rico, the island’s own Destination Marketing Organization (DMO).
According to Borshow, the proposed strategy to transform Puerto Rico into a world-class destination is the development of the “Visitors Economy.” “This is bigger than traditional tourism… starting by engaging the different communities around the island to exploit the assets in their own areas to promote economic and community development,” explained Borshow.
FPR’s strategy is to decentralize tourism by moving visitors to the lesser known areas of the island that have a treasure trove of natural, architectural and cultural assets available and are “super Instagramable,” according to Alma Fronteras, vice president of operations at FPR.
One of these areas is the “Túnel de Guajataca” (Guajataca Tunnel), a segment of Puerto Rico’s old railroad that crosses under a hill on the coast of Quebradillas.
“The area had been abandoned for some time, and we engaged the community to restore it. Now there are 16 to 19 new, small businesses operating in the area, and there are some 300 municipal permits pending approval for the second phase of the project,” said Fronteras.
FPR has inventoried more than 11,000 natural, architectural, lodging and cultural assets throughout the island’s 78 municipalities, and expects to replicate this model of community co-management to promote economic development.
