Miami Launches 'MiamiCoin' Cryptocurrency (vice.com) 70
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: [Miami has] launched its own cryptocurrency, MiamiCoin, which claims to allow city citizens to earn Bitcoin "in their sleep." On Tuesday, Okcoin was the first crypto exchange to list MiamiCoin. The idea is to fill the city's coffers via speculation. People can mine the coin (which is less difficult and thus less energy intensive than mining Bitcoin or Ethereum), and revenue from the coin will be diverted to the city's treasury. As investors buy the coin, its value will ideally continue to go up, and that cash will be used to fund infrastructure projects or events in the city.
MiamiCoin, which is listed as $MIA on exchanges, is the product of CityCoins, a project that "gives communities the power to improve their cities, while providing crypto rewards to individual contributors and city governments alike." MiamiCoin is the first CityCoin to be released, though a cryptocurrency for San Francisco is on the way, too, according to the website. The project works hand-in-hand with the Miami government.
Bitcoin comes into all of this because the blockchain MiamiCoin runs on, Stacks, is built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. So, MiamiCoin miners are rewarded with small amounts of Bitcoin by inadvertently contributing to the Bitcoin blockchain. Mayor Francis Suarez, who previously invited persecuted Chinese Bitcoin miners to Miami after the country cracked down on the industry, said that the coin could earn the city "millions of dollars" in an interview last week. Suarez told Fox Business that the funds could be used to help "eliminate homelessness completely" and "increasing our police force." Despite emphatically not being Bitcoin and having complex layers of mechanics, Suarez said that MiamiCoin was "like a Bitcoin." Not all Bitcoiners agree with that sentiment. "Miami would be better off converting long term treasury holdings to Bitcoin. While MiamiCoin's novelty will likely generate some traction after its launch, I think it will fade away. All the while Bitcoin will continue to grow faster than the internet itself," said Brady Swenson, Head of Education at Swan Bitcoin, an app that automates Bitcoin purchases, and the host of podcasts Swan Signal Live and Citizen Bitcoin. "MiamiCoin will not benefit from Bitcoin's global network effect, nor accrue the corresponding exponential gains in purchasing power."
MiamiCoin, which is listed as $MIA on exchanges, is the product of CityCoins, a project that "gives communities the power to improve their cities, while providing crypto rewards to individual contributors and city governments alike." MiamiCoin is the first CityCoin to be released, though a cryptocurrency for San Francisco is on the way, too, according to the website. The project works hand-in-hand with the Miami government.
Bitcoin comes into all of this because the blockchain MiamiCoin runs on, Stacks, is built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. So, MiamiCoin miners are rewarded with small amounts of Bitcoin by inadvertently contributing to the Bitcoin blockchain. Mayor Francis Suarez, who previously invited persecuted Chinese Bitcoin miners to Miami after the country cracked down on the industry, said that the coin could earn the city "millions of dollars" in an interview last week. Suarez told Fox Business that the funds could be used to help "eliminate homelessness completely" and "increasing our police force." Despite emphatically not being Bitcoin and having complex layers of mechanics, Suarez said that MiamiCoin was "like a Bitcoin." Not all Bitcoiners agree with that sentiment. "Miami would be better off converting long term treasury holdings to Bitcoin. While MiamiCoin's novelty will likely generate some traction after its launch, I think it will fade away. All the while Bitcoin will continue to grow faster than the internet itself," said Brady Swenson, Head of Education at Swan Bitcoin, an app that automates Bitcoin purchases, and the host of podcasts Swan Signal Live and Citizen Bitcoin. "MiamiCoin will not benefit from Bitcoin's global network effect, nor accrue the corresponding exponential gains in purchasing power."
MIA is at least good branding (Score:5, Funny)
At least they have the right $MIA listing name. Which is where the investors money will be shortly.
One more Shitcoin! (Score:1)
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you're confused, Bitcoin is the biggest shitcoin of all. A gambling token with no utility that causes pollution to sustain, buoyed only by hype and sucker's money.
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no, it's still the global reserve currency. Bitcoin only changed to money when it's time to buy something. Stores don't accept bitcoin.
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Gold "failed as money" because it is heavy and inconvenient in large amounts, and people could shave coins. So, gold was held in reserve by banks and reserve notes were issued which could be exchanged for gold, the "gold standard". Having gold as money doesn't allow for the supply to grow unless one gets more gold. When gold coins were used, the government would shave coins or simply melt the coins down and make new smaller coins. By going to reserve notes, this wasn't possible. The g
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Indeed, Gold was centralized until the money became pure fiat. This process happened between WWI and 1971.
A similar process happened with the fall of the Roman Empire: https://twitter.com/drew_macma... [twitter.com]
Bitcoin is the closest thing we have to a perfect sound money. This makes Bitcoin 1000x better than Gold. A sound money should be hard to produce. In other words, a fiat currency that could be printed to infinity with a simple keyboard, can't even compete with Gold, and Gold is obsolet
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Bitcoin is the closest thing we have to a perfect sound money.
That is an incredibly ignorant thing to say. You have no idea what "sound money" is. Sound money is "money not liable to sudden appreciation or depreciation in value [merriam-webster.com]" yet bitcoin regularly fluctuates wildly for no reason. A good currency doesn't cost more to use than most transactions. . The US$ is free. Visa charges a small percentage of the transaction. Bitcoin costs around $60.00 per transaction regardless of size. If you wanted to buy a $20.00 pizza with bitcoin, that pi
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An unsound money, is a money that could be debased, at will, through inflation.
Here is the reason Gold was sound money: https://ingoldwetrust.report/t... [ingoldwetrust.report]
Visa is a payment network; Visa is not a money.
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Inflation is a side effect of debasing by printing more, not a cause. IMHO you can't have a long-term valid fiat currency without also introducing wage and price controls. The US *could* have controlled inflation in various sectors of its economy by printing the money directly into the hands of the end users (consumers) instead of giving it to large institutions. (2008 bailouts, student loans, etc etc)
And then it would "trickle up" to the very wealthy.
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Bitcoin is a payment network as well. Bitcoin is not a money. People buy bitcoin with money or earn money that is p
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wrong, Bitcoin fails all the tests of money. Illiquid, not accepted, not stable. It is the closest thing we have to Tulip Mania. Bitcoin is unsound gambling token.
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That's just Ignorant bitcoin shilling from guy who doesn't know what money is. Wrong. Bitcoin can't be money, is not money, fails all the tests of money.
Re: Bitcoin Maximalist (Score:1)
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I can see the headlines
"Florida man launches own cryptocurrency. Declared $MIA"
Oh God no please no (Score:3)
Re: Oh God no please no (Score:2)
Why do people think civilization is going to break down?
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Because modern civilization is based on just-in-time supply chains which itself relies on a lot of parts that also run on just-in-time supply chains.
"But we got plenty of local farmers, etc" arguments always neglect to take the whole chain from beginning to end. What happens when those farmers need to repair their equipment but can't get parts, for example? And with the braindead DRM implemented on farm equipment, that's only making things worse.
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Hey did you read my retirement plan!!! I knew it was too good to keep it secret
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It's pretty much the same as funding education with a lottery, which Florida also does, without the irony.
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Basically the same idea as municipal bonds.
But instead of having to pay you back with interest, Miami sells you the coins and you and the other bag holders get to grow imaginary value until someone actually tries to cash out.
Time to start charging states for pollution. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with these types of schemes is that they eat up electricity which results in the use of more fossil fuels. As such, I think it's past time we start charging each state for amount of pollution they emit. This way, you crack down on stupidity like this and push every state toward desiring to pollute less. If they want to tax corps directly, fine, if they want to tax people on their behalf, that's also their choice. However, we clearly need to be taxing pollution.
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This is Florida - they probably give tax credits for creating additional pollution and garbage.
curious to see how this develops (Score:2)
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Neither of those things is the responsibility of capitalism. Those things are the responsibility of the government.
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I'm interested to see how a crypto might help improve a city's infrastructure and alleviate poverty.
I have some bad news for you...
political hack (Score:2)
Slow news day? (Score:2)
If you run a story every time some dufus launches yet another blockchain currency, I guess you can easily fill the frontpage, but ... news that matter? Rings a bell?
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If you run a story every time some dufus launches yet another blockchain currency, I guess you can easily fill the frontpage, but ... news that matter? Rings a bell?
I agree that the stupid crypto stories suck, but should that line ring a bell? If I'm not mistaken, the tagline was "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters".
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Yes. Exactly.
Does that matter? At all?
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Not that i'm not fed up by cryptocurrency bullshit myself, but how exactly is Miami launching their own bitcoin brand not news?!
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Not that i'm not fed up by cryptocurrency bullshit myself, but how exactly is Miami launching their own bitcoin brand not news?!
Because it's become such common crap that happens every day now, which means it's all (yes, crypto currencies) meaningless.
Everybody takes a crap everyday - you don't see that making the news, do you?
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I'm sorry, but if you don't think the Mayor of a prominent US city announcing a Ponzi scheme fundraiser is news, you're in the wrong site.
Florida Man (Score:5, Funny)
Florida Man starts own crypto coin. I can see where this is headed.
Crypto is pyramid scheme (Score:1)
WOW (Score:1)
Another Shitcoin to Pollute the Atmosphere (Score:2)
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It doesn't sound like you know what you are talking about at all. Bitcoin's algorithm does not necessarily require a large amount of power. It is designed so that the money supply expansion is kept at a controlled rate irrespective of how much hash capacity is used to run bitcoin nodes. So no matter how much hash capacity or energy you throw at it, it will not expand the money supply any faster. Instead, it just makes the hash acceptance criteria more specific (raises the difficulty).
The reason it uses so m
Big mistake (Score:2)
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I happen to think its a dumb idea that will flop like yesterdays dead fish, on its own merits. Irrelevant to my point though.
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City innovating? They bought into a scheme someone was trying to market to every city. It should be obvious how useless such a coin would be. Generally we try to keep the governments scamming citizens limited to the lottery.
What's next, LargoCoin? (Score:1)
OrangeCoin?
BiglyCoin?
YuugeCoin?
StableGeniusCoin?
ModMeNegativeOneCoin?
Straight forward admitted pyramid scheme (Score:1)
This scheme is a pyramid/ponzi scheme, has it escaped the attention of Miami that this is against state and federal law? Trust Florida to do something so stupid.
Constitional? (Score:3)
Constitution Annotated [congress.gov]
"persecuted Chinese Bitcoin miners" (Score:2)
PERSECUTED?! jfc. Bet the Uyghar wish they were only being "persecuted" by being told to shut down their planet-destroying ponzi shitcoin scheme...
I realize the xyzcoin industry has to keep the hype engine running to maintain the sucker inflow, but that's a seriously weird turn of phrase to use to describe the CCP's shutdown of mining businesses.
Standard Practice (Score:2)
Unfortunately it's not weird now, but steadily becoming standard practice. Anyone (it needn't even be a government) suggesting that you shouldn't shit all over your fellow human beings, constitutes a "persecution". Putting on PPE is the same thing as going to a concentration camp, according to one of our lovely new Congresswomen.
It's taken us a few decades to build up to this point. I feel like social media's automated promotion of getmad "engaging content" from supposed "normal people" has sharpened it to
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Because there isn't anything more important... (Score:3)
... going on like old, tall, dangerous condos on the verge of collapse that need inspecting and repairs enforced.
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... going on like old, tall, dangerous condos on the verge of collapse that need inspecting and repairs enforced.
As someone who lives in South Florida (and actually know the area around that tragic collapse), I 100% agree with you. Our overlords have their public policy priorities backwards. Hustlers gotta hustle I guess.
The Question Is (Score:2)
Can I buy Columbian Marching Powder with it?
Greedy government gits (Score:2)
the coin could earn the city "millions of dollars"
"Earn" - that word doesn't mean what he thinks it does. They are hoping to profit from people speculating on a new, untried cryptocoin. Which is to say: this is yet another tax on the stupid, just like government-run lotteries. There's no "earning" involved - instead, this is a hidden tax that will primarily be paid by people who can't really afford it.
Meanwhile, Miami will have spent $millions setting this up. Money they could have spent "to fund infrastructure projects or events in the city".
Floridian here (Score:2)
Lose money fast! (Score:1)
All currency holdings, trad or crypto, are speculative. What the devil is Miami going to do when it suffers losses from its highly volatile cryptocurrency?