Crypto & Stablecoins
How to Get Paid in Crypto: A Simple Guide for Global Teams | Elephants Inc.
Discover the benefits of getting paid in crypto. Learn how to set up wallets, invoice clients, navigate taxes, and seamlessly convert to fiat with Elephants Inc.
How to Get Paid in Crypto: A Simple Guide for Global Teams
Work across borders. Get paid without the long wait.
TL;DR
Invoices are sent in USDC or USDT, the only invoice currencies today, with no Elephants fee to receive them.
Verified, eligible businesses can hold, convert and send USD, EUR, GBP, SGD and HKD, with more currencies open to hold on request.
Card spend is funded from the USD balance only.
A business account takes about 10 minutes to submit; virtual account details normally follow 2 to 3 business days after approval, subject to verification results and eligibility; times may vary.
Ele Points accrue only when you turn on the reward toggle in the Rewards Center.
About the Author: written by the Elephants Inc. content team, who spend their days with founders moving money between markets.
Your client is in Berlin. Your developer is in Manila. You are somewhere else again. The work crosses borders easily. The money often does not.
An international transfer can clear in about a day on a major corridor. It can also sit for most of a week on a complex route, and the real cost only becomes obvious once the money lands short. If you run a founder-led business or contract across markets, you know that feeling.
That is why getting paid in crypto, and specifically in stablecoins, has moved from a curiosity to a working option for teams that bill internationally.
Our view at Elephants Inc. is simple. You should be able to see the full cost of a payment before you approve it, and receive money in a form you can actually spend. Everything below follows from that.
Why getting paid in crypto has become a normal way to work
For years the conversation around crypto was about price. For a business billing clients abroad, the useful part is different: value that moves over the internet, in a unit both sides agree on.
Money that can move around the clock
Stablecoin transfers are not tied to banking operation hours, so they can move on a Saturday as easily as a Tuesday. Delivery still depends on network, compliance and platform processing, so timing can vary.
Costs you can see before you agree
Traditional international transfers can carry a transfer charge plus a margin inside the exchange rate. Amounts vary by institution and jurisdiction. What matters is whether you can see the fee, the rate and the expected arrival time before you confirm.
A settlement option both sides recognize
If your local currency swings, invoicing in a US dollar denominated stablecoin keeps the number you agreed and the number you receive in the same unit. Your client sends 5,000 USDC. You receive 5,000 USDC.
Fewer requirements tied to a physical presence
Some providers ask for a local entity, a branch visit or a minimum balance before they will open an account in a foreign currency. Requirements vary by institution and jurisdiction. Digital platforms can shorten that path, though these platforms still verify who you are, and requirements vary by provider and jurisdiction.
The basics: what you actually need
Two things, really.
A wallet that holds stablecoins and fiat together. Self-custody wallets give you full control of your private keys and full responsibility for them. Arrangements vary by provider and jurisdiction, so check the provider's own disclosures. With Elephants, funds are held for payment purposes. Elephants is a payments platform, not a bank, and funds in your wallet are not a bank deposit and are not CDIC-insured.
Invoices that tell your client exactly how to pay. Your invoice needs the currency, the network and the destination details, with no ambiguity. Sending a client a raw wallet address in a chat message is how payments go missing.
With Elephants, you create and send invoices from the dashboard. Clients pay in USDC or USDT, which are the only invoice currencies today, and there is no fee to receive USDC or USDT by invoice. The payment lands in your wallet as the stablecoin sent, and the invoice status updates when it arrives.
Which digital currencies suit paying a global team
Stability matters more than upside when the money is meant to cover a contractor payment on the 30th.
Stablecoins (USDC and USDT). These track a fiat currency, usually the US dollar, one to one. An invoice for $5,000 paid in USDC is still $5,000 when you sit down to pay your team. That predictability is the whole point. Elephants supports adding, holding, sending and receiving USDC and USDT alongside fiat in the same wallet, and adding stablecoins carries no Elephants fee.
Bitcoin and Ethereum. Widely recognized, but their price moves. If a client insists on paying in either, agree in writing on the rate and the timestamp before the work starts, or you will be negotiating twice. Elephants does not support them; USDC and USDT are the supported stablecoins.
How to turn crypto into local currency
Turning stablecoins into local currency is the step that adds the most work. Three common routes:
Peer to peer. You find the buyer yourself. Cheap on paper, slow in practice, and counterparty risk sits with you.
A centralized exchange. Sell, withdraw, wait, move the funds again. It works, and it adds steps, fees and a reconciliation problem at month end.
A platform that holds both. Add stablecoins to your Elephants wallet, then choose what happens next. Convert between balances with the rate shown on screen before you confirm, with no forced conversion. Or send to 100+ currencies and 150+ countries through local payment methods and SWIFT, depending on destination and currency. Every transfer shows its full cost first, itemized as the network fee, the Elephants fee and the FX conversion.
Here is how that reads in practice. Maya runs a six person design studio in Lisbon.
Thursday afternoon, a Singapore client pays her 8,000 USDC against an invoice she sent from the dashboard. The status updates when it lands.
She keeps part of the balance in USD for her team's card spend, converts what she needs into EUR at the rate she can see, and prepares a contractor payment to Manila. No exchange account, no second platform, no Monday morning wait.
"We used to lose 6% to 8% in fees just moving money off exchanges and offramping to pay our global vendors and team. Switching to Elephants has substantially reduced those costs. The sheer ease of use has completely elevated our financial management."
David Packham, Founder & CEO, Chintai
Tax and compliance still apply
Getting paid in crypto does not change what you owe.
Record the value at receipt. Tax treatment of income received in cryptocurrency varies by country, so check with your accountant about how and when it is assessed where you are.
Keep clean records. Every invoice, every conversion, every payout. Your accountant will ask.
Export your data. Ele can produce reports and summaries and export your transactions as a CSV for your accounting software.
Ask a professional. A certified accountant in your tax residency is worth the fee.
A step by step path to accepting crypto payments
Step 1: open a business account
A business account takes about 10 minutes to submit, including your documents and the verification links for your directors and owners. Verification and approval follow. Once you are approved, the virtual card, stablecoin transfers and fiat payouts are available with no further waiting period, and you are guided straight into opening your multi-currency account. Business virtual account details normally take 2 to 3 business days after approval. All of this is subject to verification results and eligibility, and times may vary.
Verified, eligible businesses can receive, hold, convert and send in USD, EUR, GBP, SGD and HKD, with more currencies open to hold on request.
Eligibility applies. Multi-currency is available to verified business accounts, subject to review. Eligibility depends on your country of registration and industry, and varies by account, by currency, and by payment network.
Step 2: bill without a second tool to reconcile
The invoice you send and the wallet the money lands in sit in the same dashboard, so there is no separate invoicing tool to match up at month end.
Step 3: keep visibility with Ele
Ele is the AI financial assistant, reachable inside WhatsApp and the app. Ask it for your balance, your recent transactions, your spending categories or your cash flow, and it answers from the activity recorded on your Elephants account. Ele prepares payments and transfers; you approve them. It informs, you decide.
Step 4: spend the balance and earn Ele Points
Issue virtual cards to the founder and each team member, set a spend limit per card, and freeze or adjust one in a tap. Card spending draws from your USD balance, not from your stablecoin or other currency balances. Physical cards ship worldwide, subject to verification and jurisdiction.
Cards are issued through a licensed card partner.
Turn on the reward toggle in the Rewards Center and you earn 1 Ele Point per $2 of card spend and 1 Ele Point per $15 sent, redeemable 1:1 for airline miles on flights. Hotels, VPNs, AI tools and eSIMs are coming soon. Points never accrue by default.
*Ele Points vary by plan (20,000 points/month cap; fees apply beyond the cap and for booster). Redemption terms & availability apply. Details: https://app.elephants.inc/rewards*
FAQ
Which currencies can I invoice in? USDC and USDT are the only invoice currencies today, and there is no Elephants fee to receive either by invoice.
How long does business verification take? Submitting a business account takes about 10 minutes, approval follows verification, and business virtual account details normally arrive 2 to 3 business days after approval, subject to verification results and eligibility.
What funds my card? Card spend is funded from the USD balance only.
Which fiat currencies can I hold? Verified, eligible businesses can receive, hold, convert and send USD, EUR, GBP, SGD and HKD, with more currencies open to hold on request.
Do I have to convert stablecoins when they arrive? No. There is no forced conversion, and you see the rate on screen before you confirm any conversion.
Run your money in one place instead of four
Getting paid in crypto is no longer a technical project. It is a practical way to shorten the gap between finishing the work and having money you can use.
Plans are US$39/month for Spend, US$39/month for Move and US$69/month for Complete. First 6 months: $0 monthly account fee, which waives the monthly account fee only; transaction, funding and payout fees still apply.
Receive in the currencies your clients use. Spend with cards you control. Move money to 100+ currencies with the cost shown first. Understand all of it with Ele. One system, built for how founder-led teams actually work.
Elephants facilitates the transfer of funds only. Tax withholding, pension and provident fund contributions, superannuation, social security, and all other statutory employment obligations remain your responsibility as the employer.
About Elephants Inc.
Elephants Inc. is a fintech payments platform registered in Canada as a Money Services Business and Payment Service Provider. Elephants Inc. is powered by Elephants Growth Tech Ltd, which is registered with FINTRAC as an MSB (Registration No. C10001690) and with the Bank of Canada as a PSP under the Retail Payment Activities Act.
You can verify this registration on the Bank of Canada's public PSP registry: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/regulatory-oversight/retail-payments/psp-registry/.
This enables Elephants to support foreign exchange, money transfer, virtual currency services, payment accounts, fund holding, and electronic fund transfers for end users.
See current plans and pricing at https://elephants.inc/
Get started and run your stablecoins and fiat from one account.
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