Miami’s mayor Francis Suarez is trying to attract tech talent to his city. (The New York Times recently noted he’s joined by “a few venture capital influencers trying to tweet the city’s startup world into existence.”) So he’s still pushing a proposal to use bitcoin in a few city operations as “part of a larger play if you will to position Miami as one of the most tech-forward cities in the country,” according to Reuters.
Bloomberg reports:
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 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….
Ken Russell, vice-chairman of the city commission, said he’s “certainly not opposed” to the idea of integrating Bitcoin into the city’s business, but it’s important to ensure “we all know what we’re getting into.”
“What needs to be done is diligence, and not just from the legal perspective,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s not just a currency, it’s a concept.”
Bloomberg also points out that the mayor of the City of Miami “doesn’t control the budget or municipal workforce or get a vote on the commission.
“He asked voters to give him more managerial power, but the initiative failed.”
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot