Japanese future-oriented “energy, Web3 and business resilience” firm Remixpoint will become the first listed company in the country to pay its CEO’s full salary in BTC. New leader Taku Tashiro is tying both his and his company’s fortunes to digital assets, as Remixpoint moves into the budding “Bitcoin Treasury” acquisition business.
“Through Bitcoin, we will build a system to share economic value with shareholders by sharing their economic destiny with them,” it said in a statement.
The concept of a company employee, CEO or otherwise, receiving a salary or partial salary in digital assets is far from new. Since Bitcoin first appeared, there have been countless examples of informal arrangements of this nature. However, in modern economies, it remains legally impossible for a registered business to pay salaries directly in anything other than local legal tender, due to taxation and accounting regulations. However, what happens after that is an employee’s choice, and middleman services quickly sprang up to fulfill this need.
BitWage, launched in May 2014, pioneered in this field as the first company to formalize and streamline the process. Under a BitWage arrangement, the business relationship is with the receiver and not the payer—you arrange for your salary (or a percentage of it) to be deposited in BitWage’s fiat accounts, and they’ll send you the equivalent in digital assets. The payer doesn’t even need to know about this arrangement.
Remixpoint’s case is a first (in Japan) because the company will acquire the BTC and send it to Tashiro’s wallet address. His salary will still be paid in Japanese yen (JPY) on the company’s books. The company will then calculate the equivalent amount in BTC at that day’s market price, buy it, and send it to the CEO.
Japanese business culture is notoriously conservative, but Tashiro’s BTC decision probably won’t raise eyebrows as much as it would have a decade ago. This is partly thanks to Bitcoin, blockchain, and digital assets becoming household names and establishing a solid niche in the financial technology world.
Another reason is that “tech CEO” culture is no longer a novelty in Japan. Livedoor founder and former CEO Takafumi Horie (aka “Horiemon”) launched his full-frontal assault on the Japanese business world over 20 years ago. His antics included tech-industry classics like wearing T-shirts at work, founding a rocket company, attempting to purchase a major sports team, and even serving a couple of years in prison over stock scandals. Horiemon remains popular in Japan and definitely softened up the crowd for later, less outrageous managers.
Remixpoint joins the ‘Bitcoin Treasury’ trend
Remixpoint, launched in 2004, is a model of the modern progressive technology firm. Ostensibly an energy company first, its mission is to solve energy problems for its customers related to the economy, environment, and society, while creating “a new standard of value.” Its work primarily involves batteries, renewable energy technology, and advising on available subsidies. Remixpoint also lists Web3 solutions and “business resilience,” with frequent references to sustainable development goals (SDGs) and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Just after his appointment as Remixpoint CEO in June 2025, Tashiro said he planned to “evolve Remixpoint into a next-generation treasury management company.” Pivoting to the crypto HODLing business feels like a logical next step for a company with that kind of profile. It reflects an emerging trend kicked off by MicroStrategy’s (NASDAQ: MSTR) Michael Saylor.
It’s still far too early to tell whether such pivots are wise business or not, but textbook writers of the future will have plenty of case studies to analyze. We’ll leave the last word to Remixpoint:
“This is more than just a financial strategy. We believe that by putting Bitcoin at the core of our financial strategy, we have the potential to further boost our corporate value. This is not speculation, but based on a belief in the changing times.”
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Jon Southurst