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Bitcoin United States

Incoming New York Mayor Eric Adams Vows To Take First Three Paychecks In Bitcoin (cnbc.com) 59

In a follow-up to yesterday's story about New York City mayor-elect Eric Adams' dreams of putting the Big Apple on the blockchain, CNBC reports that Adams plans to take his first three paychecks in bitcoin. From the report: "NYC is going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry," Adams said in a tweet on Thursday. In this same post, he wrote that in New York, "we always go big" so he would be taking his "first THREE paychecks" in bitcoin. Adams appeared to be trying to one-up Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who said on Tuesday that he would be taking his next paycheck "100% in bitcoin."

Since winning office, the New York mayor has been throwing down with Suarez in a battle over who can transform their respective fiefdoms into crypto capitals of the country. Mayor Suarez's progressive crypto policies have already begun to attract top talent. [...] The New York mayor-elect said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday that he wanted to wager a "friendly competition" with Suarez. "He has a MiamiCoin that is doing very well -- we're going to look in the direction to carry that out," Adams told Bloomberg Radio. Adams also said in this interview that he planned to look at what was preventing the growth of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in New York.

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Incoming New York Mayor Eric Adams Vows To Take First Three Paychecks In Bitcoin

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  • Uh-oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday November 04, 2021 @08:07PM (#61958717)

    One key sign of a trend being over is when politicians try to jump onto the bandwaggon.

    • In this case that would be good thing. Kill the hype. We should keep our currency in the physical realm.

      • Re:Uh-oh (Score:4, Insightful)

        by BrainJunkie ( 6219718 ) on Friday November 05, 2021 @06:32AM (#61959559)
        For all practical purposes our currency is already out of the physical realm.

        The vast majority of US Dollars will never exist in physical form, they'll always be only on balance sheets at banks. At the moment the value of just the Federal Reserve's balance sheet is greater than all printed/minted USD that exist. UD Debt is bigger than that, as is the value of US stock markets, and if the value of derivatives markets is added in it absolutely dwarfs everything else combined.

        In that way, a cryptocurrency is more "real" than fiat. Even though it doesn't exist in physical form it does enforce uniqueness via cryptography. Even though its value can fluctuate wildly, more can't be conjured out of nothing.
        • ...more can't be conjured out of nothing.

          Oh that doesn't stop more cryptocurrencies being conjured out of nothing: https://coinmarketcap.com/new/ [coinmarketcap.com] .. OK well, out of something because information is physical - at least today.

          Ultimately, cryptocurrencies vie to represent the same limited set of artifacts, activities and sentiment fait currencies represent today - whether it's cars, equity or greed.

          Someone create mayorcoin and pay this guy please !

    • Re:Uh-oh (Score:4, Interesting)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday November 04, 2021 @08:30PM (#61958767) Journal

      New York is a financial center. Banking is what they do. They are always looking for the next hype financial gimmick, and they invent a lot of them.

    • I still remember when Bill Clinton sent the first Presidential E-mail in 1998. https://www.historyofinformati... [historyofinformation.com]
    • It just shows that he has no econo.ic sense, and thinks money grows on trees.
    • Politicians discovered 4chan and became QAnonymous
  • WTF (Score:2, Insightful)

    by etash ( 1907284 )
    indeed a declining empire. Sensationalism and Illiteracy combined.
  • either looking for a bribe or a kickback. But who knows, may be all the cryptos billinaires can own the politicians and own or run for elected office in the future.
  • Adams appeared to be trying to one-up Miami Mayor Francis Suarez

    This should be fun to watch. /S

  • If he is so confident, just be paid from now on in bitcoin. Also pledge to not covert it to cash unless spending it.

    • by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      Politicians get paid in Monero, and have since its invention. Prior to that they were paid in other goods deemed untraceable. If politicians were merely paid in dollars, by the people they purport publicly to serve, the nation (really all nations) would be a thousand times better.

    • How do you know he sees it as an investment? He's a politician, maybe he just wants to skip the taxes, report it as a loss, and skip straight to paying for highly illegal epstein-tier activities.
  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday November 04, 2021 @08:31PM (#61958773)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Would not work. If the donor cant prove they donated they have no hold on the politician to get their agenda passed. Lobbying only works because if politicians dont follow through the lobbyists can leak to the media how much they paid.
      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        Why would that be a threat? If anything, it benefits a politician to show that donor money didn't influence their policy.

        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          An honest politician is one who once bought stays bought. This would allow politicians to take money from one lobby before election and then not carry through after election and ask money from another lobby.

          If politicans cant be bought then the entire edifice of Western Style democracy breaks down. You would have to impose educational standards on voters. In the current system it doesnt hurt to let illiterate idiots vote because irrespective of the person voted in they are controlled by the adults in soc
          • Man, you are far down the rabbit hole.

            You do realize that there are functioning societies in Europe that do not require bought politicians? I'm sorry that the political system in the US is so enthusiastically dysfunctional, but succumbing to Stockholm syndrome is not going to help. There are better ways to run your society.

            • by ghoul ( 157158 )
              Keep telling yourself that if it allows you to sleep better. Europe has 90% of wealth owned by the ex aristocracy. Social mobility is worse than the US. Basically your station at birth determines your station in life. With no birth based citizenship there are entire generations of second class nationals who can work but not vote
  • No ulterior motive at all? I would think this is just to increase wealth in the long term and nothing else.
  • Only people like this can actually do this, which makes it a form of discrimination and elite entitlement.
  • Even if crypto at some point actually had the potential to free people from the fuckery of oligarchic finance, I'd say the mayor of New York publicly getting into it is a clear sign that it IS and irrevocably will be oligarchic finance. If you buy crypto thinking you're sticking it to the Fed, you're the Fed's next sucker.

  • Money always goes where more money can be made. That is not always a null-sum game. It is also the reason bubbles form - and then burst.

    The last financial crash apparently wasn't bad enough, because there were still some actual values (houses for the real estate crash, company assets for the financial market crash) behind it to catch the drop somewhere around the actual worth.

    So now we go into the purely digital, where the price could drop to nothing at all. We do it with big news and showing off, so that a

    • by danda ( 11343 )

      > where the price could drop to nothing at all

      All money is based on belief/faith that others value the money (for whatever reason).

      The "price" of any money, valued in another money, or commodities, can drop to zero if/when people collectively lose that faith. This applies equally to paper currency, cryptocurrency, gold, tulips, or whatever.

      So for example, as the central banks continue to try and print fiat money to inflate themselves out of the economic mess they've created over decades, people begin t

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        All money is based on belief/faith that others value the money (for whatever reason).

        We didn't have a currency crisis, at least in the west. Other countries did, and stuff like "let's just remove the last zero from everything" (i.e. devalue all currency to 10% its nominal value) have happened there, wiping out most people's savings and cash reserves.

        people begin to see that their savings are buying less and they are effectively becoming poorer.

        That's a gradual process, not a bubble/burst cycle. Inflation always exists, at various values. Until we enter the region of hyperinflation where your money loses value literally as you carry it from the bank to the shop, we're basically good. M

        • by danda ( 11343 )

          So I guess you won't be buying any then. See you on the other side. ;-)

          • by Tom ( 822 )

            I'm happy that I sold mine. Sure I could've sold more expensively, that's true of almost every gamble of this kind. But I wouldn't want to be on the rollercoaster, so have fun. :-)


  • An Uber driver told me the same thing last week. "I'm only gonna get paid in Bitcoin".

    Sounds like JP Morgan's ETF pump is working perfectly.
  • So while we all try hard to restrict personal consumption and change industrial production to reduce the CO2 impact on the drastically changing climate, the New York City mayor-elect supports a crypto currency that creates more CO2 than a huge country.

    Way to go US!

  • Went to look up what kind of libertarian cyberpunk villain this guy is, he's actually with the Democratic party, but his politics are rather bizarre. I don't see anything suggesting he wants to turn New York into a neon-soaked cybercrime haven, but he seems to be very much into technological solutionism and this may be an extension of that. Probably another case of someone knowing just enough about something to be dangerous..

  • His next three paychecks?! Wow, what an amazing show of courage.

    Lame.

    If he had any balls to back up his claims, he'd get the whole year worth of paychecks in Bitcoins.

  • I'm super impressed by this bold statement. So he gets paid in bitcoin, he could convert it immediately if he wants to.

  • Wow, he is so cool and hip. I wish I could be like him.

  • Enjoy your mayor NYC!
    Maybe it was for the best, now Mr. Yang can concentrate on the new 3rd party to break the two-party deadlock: https://www.forwardparty.com/ [forwardparty.com]
  • ..will spend the first three months of his term exclusively in the metaverse.

Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.

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