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Miami Pushes Crypto With Proposal to Pay Workers in Bitcoin

• Yahoo Finance

The mayor wants to allow the City of Miami's workers to choose to receive all or a portion of their pay in Bitcoin, according to a resolution passed by the city's governing commission. In addition, the mayor proposed allowing people to pay all or part of property taxes or city fees in crypto.

Although the commission approved the resolution 4-1, it significantly dialed back its original wording. It only agreed to study the practicality of such steps, rather than taking action, as the original proposal had suggested.

Suarez has been courting Silicon Valley investors and technology companies for months, and adopting Bitcoin is a critical part of that plan. "I think we're on the cusp of seeing a major titanic shift on this," Suarez told the city commission. "It's an industry that's boisterous, vociferous and growing, and this would send the right signal."

Suarez also wants the city to analyze the feasibility to invest some government funds in Bitcoin, the resolution said. It's not clear how much of that is actually possible: Florida statutes have strict limitations on how local governments can invest surplus funds, generally restricting investments to low-volatility instruments such as those issued by the U.S. government. In the past year alone, Bitcoin has shown it can double in price -- or lose half its value -- in a month's time.

Suarez doesn't seemed fazed by volatility: Miami, the mayor's original resolution said, "is committed to promoting the emergence of Bitcoin as it continues to gain mainstream acceptance."

Some city commissioners cautioned against embracing Bitcoin without a close study of the risks. "Let's analyze this before we jump in," said Manolo Reyes, a commissioner. "Maybe you're ahead of your time, maybe you're right, but let's analyze it."

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by Ed Martin
Entered on:

Kind of tough for a government to do since Bitcoin is difficult to steal and cannot be printed.