4 min read
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said today that he is building out a team to help develop his plans for getting more involved in the cryptocurrency space—with announcements coming out next week.
Speaking in an interview with Cryptex Finance (where Decrypt was a fly on the wall), he was asked whether he had considered investing in Ethereum instead of Bitcoin—given that he could create applications to collect taxes directly on the blockchain platform itself.
“We’d love to do that. What we're looking at is two things. One is to accept crypto for payments, and there’s a process, right. We probably won’t hold Bitcoin or any cryptocurrencies. We’ll probably have a third party hold it and take the cryptocurrency—in the extent there is some volatility,” the Mayor said.
“We’d love to explore the platform, I’m building out my team, that’s starting on Monday, I’m going to be making some major announcements next week,” he added.
Miami is open to cryptocurrency. Image: Shutterstock
Cryptex Finance is the team behind TCAP, a total crypto market cap token, which gives holders real-time price exposure to the total cryptocurrency market cap.
The purpose behind the call between the Mayor and the Cryptex Finance team was to discuss the possibilities of using Ethereum to promote the city’s cryptocurrency strategy. Ethereum is a platform that’s home to hundreds of decentralized applications, where automated programs can be built for any financial application, such as borrowing or lending money.
During the call, the Mayor shared some of his recent thoughts on cryptocurrency. He argued that money can be anything that society considers to have value.
“Anything can be money—anything can have value. What has value is what we, as a society, value,” the Mayor said.
In fact, the Mayor believes that the digital revolution of money is already underway. “If you really think about it, in many ways we’re already in a digital money market,” the Mayor said.
He suggested that Bitcoin could be an alternative that affords citizens a new sense of freedom, as opposed to fiat currencies tied to government policy.
The Miami Mayor says society decides what has value. Image: Shutterstock
“Money and currency is being used to promote policies. We have a market crash, so we have to influence the behaviour of people through the money supply,” the Mayor added.
Suarez has been demonstrating serious interest in Bitcoin in recent weeks, suggesting the cryptocurrency could put some of Miami’s treasury reserves in Bitcoin.
On December 29, 2020, Anthony Pompliano tweeted, “Retweet this if you would move to Miami if Mayor @FrancisSuarez put 1% of the city’s treasury reserves in Bitcoin.”
The Mayor replied, “Definitely open to exploring it.”
Mayor Suarez then discussed the future of the cryptocurrency industry with the Winklevoss twins earlier this month. In the interview, he said his mission was to make Miami the “most crypto competitive city on the planet.”
“There’s a lot of people who live in Miami who might have family who live elsewhere in other countries—they pay tremendous fees just to move that money,” Tyler Winklevoss said, adding, “Cryptocurrency is like sending money the same way you send an email.”
The Mayor wants to encourage more technologically savvy people to go to Miami and get stuck in.
In reaction to a Bloomberg article covering the Mayor’s efforts, he tweeted, “We want anyone who shares our vision to come here and build,” adding, But we’re not going to be ‘Silicon Beach’ or the next New York...we are Miami and we won’t forget that.”
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