Miami Mayor Pushes For Choice Between Cash Or BTC Salaries

Francis Suarez stands as the mayor of the city of Miami, and has recently given an interview with Forbes. In this interview, Suarez made it clear that there were several paths investigated in order to increase the city’s Bitcoin adoption. This includes allowing the employees of the city to be paid in Bitcoin for their salaries.

The Expected Positive Response

As one would imagine, there were only positive responses from this idea from various major crypto space figures. Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Square and Twitter, proclaimed this move as “Smart” on his platform.

Smart https://t.co/wxsQkbfPef

— jack (@jack) February 2, 2021

Tyler Winklevoss, one of the co-founders of the Gemini exchange, proudly proclaimed that Suarez is blazing a trail for both Bitcoin and the world’s governments.

Miami and @FrancisSuarez are leading the way for governments and #Bitcoinhttps://t.co/mtMmrGl47R

— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) February 2, 2021

Aiming To Turn Miami Into A Crypto Hub

As for why Suarez is doing this, the mayor told Forbes that it’s primarily due to how crypto has seen a rise in popularity among the people. As a result of this, the mayor has opted to do everything in his power to make Miami one of the world’s Bitcoin-friendly cities.

Many other proposals have been floated about, as well, including allowing taxes and local fees to be paid in cryptocurrencies. Another big idea from the city is to allocate a portion of its treasury to be Bitcoin, much like Microstrategy had done (With significant effect).

As it stands now, Mayor Suarez isn’t really sure of the exact details when it comes to the treasury investment. However, he is certain that it will be based on a public-private partnership: Private investors will be capable of alleviating some of the risks in return for some rewards.

Going All In On Crypto

Another thing Mayor Suarez is considering involves his reelection campaign, where he is considering financing it completely through Bitcoin. It should be noted, however, that Suarez isn’t the first that has turned to Bitcoin in order to fund his political campaigns. Names like Andrew Yang, Tom Emmer, Eric Swalwell, as well as Lara Loomer have all accepted cryptocurrencies in the past.

It should be noted that Mayor Suarez is convinced that Bitcoin will serve as the biggest story to hit the scene for the next few years. At least, this can be true from a financial standpoint.

It should be noted that Mayor Suarez had declared that Bitcoin was a stable investment late last year, highlighting the overall instability of 2020 to highlight his point. The mayor has gone as far as to upload the whitepaper of Bitcoin within the government’s website, declaring that Miami is a staunch believer of Bitcoin. As such, Suarez stated that he was working “day and night” in order to turn Miami into a crypto hub for innovation.