The city of Miami, Florida is certainly one of the most crypto-friendly cities on the planet. Not only did the city hall not hesitate for a second to officially host Bitcoin’s white paper (BTC) when the Bitcoin.org website got into legal trouble because of Craig Wright (aka Faketoshi), but its mayor Francis Suarez is himself a big supporter of the king of cryptos.
When a mayor takes on the challenge of Bitcoin adoption
As early as February 2021, Miami City Hall considered giving its city employees the option of having their salaries paid in Bitcoin. And now it seems that the mayor himself wants to lead the way in adopting cryptocurrencies.
Indeed, Mayor Francis Suarez responded this November 2 to a statement by Anthony Pompliano explaining that it would be time for the first politician in the United States to officially accept to receive his salary in BTC, challenging them to do so, as it were.
Mayor Suarez thus responded, straightforwardly and less than half an hour after the initial message:
“I will take my next salary 100% in bitcoin… Challenge accepted! (…) “
A mayor who already owns cryptos!
It must be said that the leader of Miami is already a crypto-currency lover in a private capacity. As Cointelegraph notably recalls, Mr. Suarez has stated in the past that he owns bitcoin, but also ethers from the Ethereum network (ETH).
He was also the organizer of a major Bitcoin conference in June 2021, where El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced for the first time that BTC was going to become a national, legal tender – which indeed became the case on September 7, 2021.
Going back to Mayor Suarez’s announcement, with an estimated monthly salary of around $8,000, he should soon be paid close to 0.13 BTC each month – if the current rate of $63,000 holds until then.
With the recent election of Eric Adams as mayor of New York City, the race for America’s most cryptocurrency-friendly city is likely to be intense. Indeed, the then candidate for the position had declared in late June that he wanted to make the Big Apple a true “Bitcoin hub”.