In brief

  • As ballots trickle in for the NYC mayoral primary, Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams remains the clear leader.
  • He referenced Bitcoin on Tuesday and again at a press conference this morning.

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, 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.