Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, now the clear front runner in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, said on Tuesday that he plans to make the city a “center of Bitcoins.”
“I’m going to promise you, in one year, you’re going to see a different city,” said Adams at a campaign watch party for in-person voting results. “We’re going to bring businesses here. We’re going to become the center of life science, the center of cybersecurity, the center of self-driving cars, drones, the center of Bitcoins.”
The in-person voting date for New York City’s mayoral primaries was this past Tuesday, but a substantial number of mail-in ballots means the official outcome won’t be known for weeks.
Adams says New York has "lost its mojo" and invokes Bitcoin and crypto-currency, along with vertical farming. He says people today are waking up with a "different strut"
— Ross Barkan (@RossBarkan) June 24, 2021
Adams, a former police officer and longtime New York politician, was among the Democratic race’s more moderate candidates. He referenced Bitcoin again at a press conference this morning, per the reporter Ross Barkan, and stressed that New York City needs to compete with Miami’s growing business ambitions. (Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, is also a prominent crypto influencer.)
He made a similarly hand-wavy comment about inviting new technologies to the city in 2015. "I want Bitcoin,” he said at an event. “I want Airbnb. And I want marijuana dispensaries."
Most of the Democratic candidates for mayor have been quiet on the subject of cryptocurrency (there are, needless to say, bigger municipal fish to fry); the one who’s said the most has been Andrew Yang, the one-time presidential candidate who ended his mayoral campaign on Tuesday evening after a poor showing.
In February, Yang tweeted about wanting to make New York City “a hub for [Bitcoin] and other cryptocurrencies.”
Adams has also been publicly backed by former child actor and crypto enthusiast Brock Pierce.