By
Temitope Olatunji
April 26th, 2024
The Miami mayor who’s been an advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies revealed that he wants to make his city the most attractive in the United States for those in the crypto and blockchain industry.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has proposed that municipal workers receive payment in Bitcoin as well as tax collection in a bid to expand a campaign to promote cryptocurrencies. According to a resolution passed by the city’s governing commission, the mayor urged the City to allow City of Miami’s workers to choose to receive part or all of their salary in Bitcoin. Francis Suarez also proposed allowing people in the city of Miami to pay all or part of property taxes or city fees in cryptocurrency.
The Miami mayor has had Silicon Valley investors as well as technology companies under his radar for some time and adopting Bitcoin seems to be a vital part of that plan. The mayor believes the cryptocurrency industry is boisterous, vociferous and growing and jumping on board would send the right signal. “I think we’re on the cusp of seeing a major titanic shift on this,” Suarez told the city commission.
According to the resolution, the Miami mayor also proposed the city analyze the feasibility to invest some government funds in Bitcoin. It is still unknown as to whether that is actually possible as Florida statutes have strict limitations on how local governments can invest surplus funds, generally restricting investments to low-volatility instruments such as those issued by the United States government.
The mayor’s plan to add Bitcoin to the balance sheet of the city of Miami came to light of February 6 when he tweeted in response to a tweet in which he was tagged by a user who stated that the race is on to see what municipality is going to be the first to put Bitcoin on their balance sheet. This was after news broke of Tesla purchasing Bitcoin.
Suarez subsequently tweeted “Working on a resolution for our commission for this Thursday’s meeting to get the ball rolling…@elonmusk’s announcement was very helpful…now all we need is for @amazon to adopt and then” adding rocket emojis at the end of the tweet signaling the city was ready to go along.
The Miami mayor who’s been an advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for some time now earlier this week revealed that he wants to make his city the most attractive in the United States for those in the crypto and blockchain industry. Suarez added that lawmakers in Miami were making use of policies of crypto friendly cities including New York and Wyoming in an effort to promote regulatory incentives for cryptocurrencies and blockchain in Florida.
It seems Francis Suarez is not the only person looking to integrate Bitcoin and crypto in his city as Andrew Yang, a Former Democratic presidential candidate who is now running for New York City Mayor, plans to make New York a Bitcoin hub.
After some strong polling numbers on February 10, Yang took to Twitter to lay out some of his plans for the city in a tweet that read “As mayor of NYC – the world’s financial capital – I would invest in making the city a hub for BTC and other cryptocurrencies.”
Read other crypto-related news on Coinspeaker.