Under the new program, employees can elect to defer a portion of their salary into bitcoin, bitcoin cash, or the Ethereum platform's ether, Sequoia Holdings said.

Earlier this month, Bitcoin, the world's most popular cryptocurrency, hit a record high of $40,000, rallying more than 900% from a low in March and having only just breached $20,000 in mid-December.

The surge has been powered by increased demand from institutional, corporate and more recently retail investors, attracted by the prospect of quick gains.

(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)