Early Tesla investor says $1B worth of paychecks now paid in Bitcoin

Group 1 - Tim Draper, a billionaire venture capital investor, is a prominent advocate for Bitcoin and was one of the first billionaires to invest in it, purchasing 30,000 BTC for $19 million in 2014 [1] - Draper Associates has invested in Rise, a hybrid payroll and compliance platform that recently achieved a payroll milestone of $1 billion, including payments in Bitcoin [2][3] - Rise addresses the challenges of paying a global workforce by offering a unique hybrid payroll model that supports payments in both fiat and cryptocurrency across more than 190 countries [3][4] Group 2 - The innovative payment service provided by Rise enabled the company Rain to reach a $500 million milestone and subsequently a $1 billion milestone within nine months, highlighting the effectiveness of their solution [3][5] - Draper emphasized the importance of solving real pain points in the global workforce payment systems, which remain outdated despite the increasing globalization of work [4][5] - At the time of writing, Bitcoin was valued at $87,606.06, indicating its significant market presence [5]