New York City’s Mayor To Get His First Three Paychecks in Bitcoin
Eric Adams, New York City’s recently-elected mayor, announced on Thursday that he would accept his first three salary payments in Bitcoin. The move illustrates the politician’s interest in making New York City “a center of the cryptocurrency industry.”
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Adams’ pledge was a response to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s Twitter statement that he would accept his next paycheck in Bitcoin.
On a Twitter thread, Suarez congratulated New York City’s mayor-elect and encouraged “friendly competition” between the two cities of Miami and New York, both of which are vying to become crypto capitals.
It was not immediately clear how Adams intends to accept Bitcoin payments. New York does not yet have the capability of sending payments via Bitcoin, however, Adams’ office clarified that the mayor-elect will use an exchange to convert his salary into Bitcoin.
This week, Adams also told Bloomberg that it was incumbent for New York City to become an attractive destination for crypto talent, ““because we can’t have a one-sided city where certain groups and areas are doing well.” He stressed that the city needed to build a pipeline of talent for the crypto industry.
Brooklyn has already seen a 356% increase in tech startups over a decade, Adams said, and the mayor-elect has been aggressively talking to tech leaders from Israel and America to better serve the market.
“This is the Empire State, and we’re going to build empires,” Adams told Bloomberg Television.
