Piper Alderman looking to Bitcoin it

PIPER Alderman has become the first major Australian law firm to accept bitcoin payments.

The firm, which was formed in Adelaide in 1988, will offer the payment method to clients across its office network in Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Partner and former software developer Michael Bacina said demand from clients had escalated since the surge in popularity of cryptocurrencies last year.

“Given the boom in 2017 with ICOs (initial coin offerings) being very popular, we wanted to help clients working in the blockchain or working through their own ICOs,” he said.

“Some of these businesses are sitting on very large dollar amounts in cryptocurrency and so they don’t want to have to transfer that to money and then pay us in that way.”

“Also, a lot of people participating in the cryptocurrency space want to transact in a way that is new and exciting – for many it’s part of a philosophy.”

Mr Bacina said bitcoin payments would be automatically transferred into Australia dollars, shielding the firm from the wild fluctuations that have underlined bitcoin’s rise.

This story originally appeared in The Advertiser January 17, 2018.