Miami is banking on cryptocurrency and New York wants in

Miami already has a lot going for it — the sunshine, the beach, the Cuban coffee. Now the city’s mayor Francis Suarez wants to put it on the map for another reason: he wants to be the first to create a new way of raising money for the city — through a new cryptocurrency.

MiamiCoin, an experiment he launched this year, could bring in so much revenue that there could be a future scenario where “Miamians would no longer need to pay municipal taxes,” the Republican told the BBC.

That is one aspiration, and beyond that, he hopes one day to be able to hand out MiamiCoin to every resident, as a kind of digital dividend.

MiamiCoin is just one part of Mr Suarez’s drive to establish Miami as a centre for cryptocurrency.

“I believe we’ve been presented a very unique opportunity to diversify our economy,” he said. “Prior to the pandemic over 60% of Miami’s economy was service sector-based. That left us particularly vulnerable to Covid and I won’t pass on the chance to change that.”

But while Mr Suarez is first out of the blocks, he’s not the only mayor in the race for crypto-capital of the US. Hot on his heels is the man about to take over next month as New York mayor, Eric Adams.