The Rise of the Crypto Mayors 23
This new political breed accepts paychecks in Bitcoin. The mayors also want to use buzzy new tech like NFTs to raise money for public projects. From a report: The ballooning popularity of Bitcoin and other digital currencies has given rise to a strange new political breed: the crypto mayor. Eric Adams, New York's new mayor, accepted his first paycheck in Bitcoin and another cryptocurrency, Ether. Francis Suarez, Miami's mayor, headlines crypto conferences. Now even mayors of smaller towns are trying to incorporate crypto into municipal government, courting start-ups and experimenting with buzzy new technologies like nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, to raise money for public projects. Their growing ranks reflect the increasing mainstream acceptance of digital currencies, which are highly volatile and have fallen in value in recent days. The mayors' embrace of crypto is also a recognition that its underlying blockchain technology -- essentially a distributed ledger system -- may create new revenue streams for cities and reshape some basic functions of local government.
"Mayors rationally want to attract high-income citizens who pay their taxes and impose few costs on the municipality," said Joseph Grundfest, a business professor at Stanford. "Crypto geeks fit this bill perfectly." But as with many ambitious crypto projects, it's unclear whether these local initiatives will ultimately amount to much. So far, most are either largely symbolic or largely theoretical. And the mayors' aims are partly political: Crypto boosterism has a useful bipartisan appeal, garnering popularity among both antigovernment conservatives and socially liberal tech moguls. "You can do these things because you want to be associated with dudes with AR-15s, or you want to be associated with Meta," said Finn Brunton, a technology studies professor at the University of California, Davis, who wrote a 2019 book about the history of crypto. "A lot of it is hype and hot air."
"Mayors rationally want to attract high-income citizens who pay their taxes and impose few costs on the municipality," said Joseph Grundfest, a business professor at Stanford. "Crypto geeks fit this bill perfectly." But as with many ambitious crypto projects, it's unclear whether these local initiatives will ultimately amount to much. So far, most are either largely symbolic or largely theoretical. And the mayors' aims are partly political: Crypto boosterism has a useful bipartisan appeal, garnering popularity among both antigovernment conservatives and socially liberal tech moguls. "You can do these things because you want to be associated with dudes with AR-15s, or you want to be associated with Meta," said Finn Brunton, a technology studies professor at the University of California, Davis, who wrote a 2019 book about the history of crypto. "A lot of it is hype and hot air."
Prediction: (Score:4, Insightful)
This will end badly, as does all cryptobro dreams.
Why????? (Score:2)
Cryptocurrency is just for schemers, crimminals, paying people who can't get a real bank account ( like cannabis merchants ) and idiot speculators . The only known legitimate use of it for which there isn't a far better solution is to smuggle your wealth out of a country with currency controls.
Are the mayors trying to attract ponzi schemers? Idiots?
There's no other possibility as crypto is useless when you can get a Visa card and are
And fall. (Score:3)
Is generally the title of books on history.
Considering the crypto currencies are dropping (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
ATM I wonder how many are still on the "Crypto currencies will only go up, up, up forever" bandwagon.
I think it works like this:
Get a paycheck worth $X, in BTC.
If BTC is downward-trending at that moment, sell it immediately, thereby getting paid $X for their work.
If BTC is upward-trending at that moment, sit on it for a little bit, then sell it, thereby getting paid $X + Y for their work.
My guess this isn't about long-term investment or massive earnings, or any of that summary's babble about initiatives or high-income citizens. It's entirely about getting paid by the city in a highly volatile commod
Re: (Score:2)
This is possible when you are only holding small amounts of BTC, and also only possible if you have some kind of exchange that will allow you to set pre-defined rules, and will dutifully execute them immediately. But keeping your BTC in a hot wallet has risks.
However, if you hold your BTC in your own offline wallet, you cannot act instantaneously. By the time you realize BTC is going down, you've already potentially lost value. Likewise, if the market is twitchy, your may sell, only to find BTC going up
Re: (Score:2)
Enquiring minds want to know (Score:4, Informative)
Is he really paid in bitcoin, as in .1 btc per pay period (or whatever is appropriate) or is he paid salary/price of btc today = ?btc on payday.
The former is really paid in bitcoin. The other is like me saying I am paid in company stock and mutual funds because on payday I get a deduction from my paycheck that goes to buy company stock and mutual funds. If the mayor is simply taking BTC as the payment for a fixed number of dollars - there is no difference in that than having your paycheck deposited into coindesk and buying btc after the check clears.
Re:Enquiring minds want to know (Score:4, Informative)
It's just corruption (Score:2)
Now they're gonna try and buy off a bunch of mayors and other politicians to let them put their mining operations in the mayor's city. They might get away with it... for a time. Then when there's brown outs and increased electricity costs due to the high energy usage (not to mention the water to cool the things, as mining operatio
Proof of location? (Score:2)
A while ago it occurred to me that you could probably blend local currency [wikipedia.org] with blockchain technology to create incentives for people to visit certain places. "Come visit our city, and you'll get SpringfieldCoin for every day you stay". It might not be as bad for the environment, but if too many places to it, it ends up like any other promotion--an arms race. In an arms race, the only winner is the arms dealer. In a promotional race, the only winner is the promoters; but still it seems like there could
Welcome to democracy (Score:2)
People love gambling and many believe there is a real chance to to win lotteries, etc. Given that, there is no surprise that the populous vote will sometimes choose whoever is into the latest cool "get rich scheme" but in the name of making money for the government so it can pay for all the things the people think the government should be paying for. Of course people don't at all agree on what the government should pay for, but they do all agree that it's better it the funds don't come from taxes. A few cry
Attract wealthier citizens? (Score:2)
Who are into crypto? You mean, the ones who use it to avoid paying taxes, which was the original idea of crypto money?