Miami se mayor, Francis Suarez, is rebranding the city as a haven for technical entrepreneurs and the tax money that comes in their wake. Its latest branding effort involves a push to give the city its municipal workers the option to be paid in bitcoin, and he would like it if citizens could also pay their taxes using the volatile crypto-currency.
Suarez announced on Thursday Twitter that Miami’s government commission approves a resolution that allows the city to examine the feasibility of offering city employees to work initcoin. Details of the meeting are not after the city website train, but Bloomberg reports that the resolution was a little less ambitious than what the mayor originally wanted.
The commission approved the measure in a 4-1 vote, but adjusted the language to have a study evaluated by the city manager to evaluate the impact of the resolution’s objectives. These goals also include the potential to allow the city to invest a portion of its funding in bitcoin. This may require state-level approval.
Suarez has been eager to tackle workers in the technology industry fleeing the high cost of living in Silicon Valley at a time when most of their work is being done remotely. Recently, he made headlines after he talked to Elon Musk on the Boring Company building underground tunnels to help alleviate Miami’s traffic problems. “If governor and mayor want to do this, we will do it,” Musk said. tweeted. But critics say such an initiative could be a fool’s errand, for the land beneath the city is, among other things, highly soluble limestone packed with caves. Even if the logistical obstacles were overcome, it would be an extremely expensive project, tell a geologist Beteuel.
Suarez’s techno-utopianism is not new, he was a regular speaker at the annual North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami and he is made court Kings of Silicon Valley like Eric Schmidt and Chris Dixon to help guide technological migration to his city.
G / O Media can get a commission
Offering employees an option to be paid in space money is not particularly absurd, but the idea of investing city funds in bitcoin may be a bridge too far. The price of cryptocurrency peaked at close to $ 19,000 in 2017. By January 2019, it had charged approximately $ 3,200. This morning, the crypto-currency is $ 47,700. The kind of volatility has bit is impractical to use as a cash flowy, but it is difficult to argue with the long-term gains. It could be a more reliable bet than giving Elon permission to dig the foundation of ‘after’ sinking city.