It's a straightforward SCAM. Walk away while you can.

@Fattie Scammers usually request that the victims use irreversible transfers. In this case, it's the hypothetical scammer proposing that he make an irreversible transfer. You assume too much and jump to conclusions too fast.

@RodrigodeAzevedo - I'd be happy to bet you $10 (in bitcoin) that it's a scam. Sadly. Whilst, as you say, it's true that scammers "request you" use bitcoin, it's also completely normal that for one reason or another scammers / criminals / etc magically "can't send" you dollars, and can "only !" send bitcoin.

@Fattie And who is being scammed? Perhaps it's the taxman, not the contractor.

Of course cryptocurrencies can be converted into money. What exactly is the question? Must the contractor pay taxes on that money? In most developed countries, the contractor most certainly must pay taxes indeed. I don't understand what is being asked.

@George Can you clarify whether you are receiving the cryptocurrency, or sending it? I see everyone jumping to the scam declaration, and it does seem off, but I'm curious how they're scamming you by sending you an irreversible payment. Bitcoin has recently risen drastically in price, this could just be an effort to take advantage of current favorable exchange rates that may or may not last, without paying the fee to convert to USD or another fiat currency themselves. I would certainly ask for the fees to be covered in the transfer.

@RodrigodeAzevedo that was my only the question - if these can be converted into money or not; you have presented a good question Must the contractor pay taxes on that money? and about that I personally have no idea.

@TCooper so far neither ; I never received a cryptocurrency payment but I am afraid some customer would prefer to pay for me that way but I wasn't sure if this is just a "second channel of money" which cannot be converted into "real" money and therefore I asked the question.

@TCooper I think that two points you have mentioned; i.e the payment being irreversible and covering the exchange rates are very important, thank you.

@George Would there be a contract and an invoice? Would the transaction be official?

@RodrigodeAzevedo there would be an order, an invoice and a receipt (if payment was sent); you might consider this official...

@George Please update your question and include all the information you have provided in these comments. What you just told me is extremely relevant.

@RodrigodeAzevedo I think not all of it is relevant; the issue of recording an order and payment (in an order book and ledger respectfully) as well as issuing an invoice and a receipt in proper possible times isn't something I should mention inside the question.

@RodrigodeAzevedo As is frequently pointed out on this site, it doesn't matter whether you are the victim of a scam, you still don't want to be involved in it. Maybe you'd be aiding a criminal in scamming someone else, or laundering stolen money, or maybe it's "only" tax fraud. Beyond the moral implications of that, there may be legal implications of having to prove you weren't a willing accomplice.

@IMSoP Did I claim otherwise? However, shouting "It's a scam!!!" conveys very little information. Providing hypotheses on how scams might work and what the risks involved might be conveys a lot more information.

@RodrigodeAzevedo It was a response to your comment "And who is being scammed? Perhaps it's the taxman, not the contractor." I am saying that that is not a relevant question. I agree that more details are needed of why this looks like a scam (and some answers do so); but if it does look like some sort of scam, not wasting time thinking about the details is usually a reasonable strategy.

If the contractor can turn that crypto into regular money, then there's no legitimate reason the customer couldn't turn it into regular money themselves instead and just send that via more reputable means (online payments, money orders, etc.)

@IMSoP Being the target and being an accomplice look quite different to me. Why should your lack of curiosity be imposed on the whole Money SE community? If you're not interested, then great. Some people want to know how the world works — including the underworld.

@DarrelHoffman The question is interesting precisely because of the lack of legitimate reasons.

@RodrigodeAzevedo Curiosity is one thing, analysing risk is another. The risk is fairly similar whether you are the direct victim or just collateral (i.e. the scammer doesn't care if you get questioned by the police). "Walk away first, be curious later" is a reasonable response.

@IMSoP How so? The risk of losing one's savings and the risk of spending a decade in prison for abetting money launderers look different to me.

@RodrigodeAzevedo They look different to me in the same way as losing an arm and losing a leg look different. I'd rather avoid either, and while I might be curious about the details, I wouldn't object to someone saying "don't do it or you'll lose a limb".

@IMSoP Harder to protect oneself from criminals if one does not understand under what principles they operate. For example, many scam-related questions on Money SE are (or seem to be) instances of the exploitation of the irreversibility of some transactions. This does not look like an instance of that family of scams. It's something else. Claiming it is a scam is not very informative. Only 1 bit of information. What I want to know is what weaknesses are being exploited.

After understanding more, this may be better suited for this SE - crypto.stackexchange.com. It seems more that you want to know how much hassle it would be for you to accept cryptocurrency as a payment method for your services. The answer is, pretty easy once you have it set up, might take a day and some fees to set up though. Like I mentioned before, be sure to require any costs associated with exchanging for your desired currency in your invoice, as a separate line item - and make those terms clear with the customer before invoicing, when they request to use a crypto payment

@TCooper Please explain to me what this question has to do with cryptography.

@RodrigodeAzevedo well "crypto"currencies are all based on cryptography, though I admit I only googled the SE and mistook it for a cryptocurrency only SE due to the top result - I believe there is such an SE? That's the one I intended to link to.

@TCooper There is bitcoin.stackexchange.com and ethereum.stackexchange.com and monero.stackexchange.com

@RodrigodeAzevedo I guess this is the best one, given the question is cryptocurrency agnostic