New York’s new mayor wants schools to teach about crypto, and that’s far from his only pro-crypto initiative

Democrat Eric Adams, who was elected last week, will succeed Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York City on Jan. 1. One of his priorities for the Big Apple is: everything to do with the crypto industry. The former senator has several projects in the pipeline.

For the past few days, Eric Adams has been making pro-crypto statements. Last week, he stated on Twitter that he wanted to be paid in Bitcoins for the first three months of his mandate. This was in response to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez saying he would become the first US politician to receive his salary in Bitcoins.

In the wake of this, New York’s future mayor announced that he wanted to make the city the “center of the crypto industry”. He stands his ground, having already declared in June that if elected, he would make New York the “center of Bitcoin”.

NewYorkCityCoin

On Monday, the Democrat also announced the arrival of the NewYorkCityCoin (or NYCCoin), a cryptocurrency that uses Bitcoin technology, making its debut today. This project, which has also been launched in other US cities, aims to unite crypto players in a city to promote the technological development of their environment.

NYCCoin uses a technique known as mining, verifying and validating transactions that have already taken place with an existing cryptocurrency. In return, the miner cryptocurrencies, which are created for the occasion. Thirty percent of the value created during the mining process is deposited into an account reserved for the City of New York, which it can use as it sees fit.

Initially, the intention is to create NYCCoins, but they will not be accessible to individuals and will not be redeemable on any public crypto platform. So the first goal is to develop a local community of entrepreneurs and services around the token. The token can be used for exchanges, or to grant access to certain websites or even physical spaces in the city.

Crypto at school?

NewYorkCityCoin launches today, so it didn’t come from Adams’ new administration. However, he is very much in favor of it. And he hopes the project will lead to many more pro-crypto initiatives in the New York entrepreneurial world… and even in schools.

In an interview on CNN the future mayor of New York explained that he thought it would be good to add “cryptoscience” to school curricula. Without specifying whether he focuses on higher education, secondary school or primary school.

“When I was talking about blockchain and Bitcoin, some kids would stop on the street and ask me, ‘What is this?’” Bitcoin, he said, is the “new way to pay for goods and services around the world”. Schools therefore “must” teach the technology behind it, as well as “this new way of thinking”.

It should be noted that his passion for cryptocurrencies does not drive him into hysterics either. Asked if he would encourage businesses in New York to accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, Adams said local authorities will “look into it” and should exercise “caution.”

“We are going to do well,” he added.

Allegations of conflict of interest

Adams’ many pro-crypto statements are not to everyone’s liking. Among the critics is Jason Furman, former economic adviser to ex-President Obama. Not only is this a bad economic strategy for NYC and a bad investment decision, but “it also looks like a conflict of interest,” he said on Twitter.

According to him, it’s like a mayor announcing that he’s buying a lot of Amazon stock and then enacting policies that are beneficial to the Jeff Bezos-founded company.

In return for CNN Adams said he used his own money.

“I lost thousands of dollars in the stock market during the crash in my pension fund. Volatility is part of some of the investments we make,” he said.

“I want to make sure that this city becomes the center of innovation, whatever that innovation is, and that’s what the human spirit is: not to be afraid to look at all areas of innovation to move our country and our city forward, ” he decided.

(evb)

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