The Rise of the Crypto Mayors
- Reference: 0158065321
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/01/26/2040214/the-rise-of-the-crypto-mayors
- Source link:
> The ballooning popularity of Bitcoin and other digital currencies has given rise to a strange new political breed: the crypto mayor. Eric Adams, New York's new mayor, accepted his first paycheck in Bitcoin and another cryptocurrency, Ether. Francis Suarez, Miami's mayor, headlines crypto conferences. Now even mayors of smaller towns are trying to incorporate crypto into municipal government, courting start-ups and experimenting with buzzy new technologies like nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, to raise money for public projects. Their growing ranks reflect the increasing mainstream acceptance of digital currencies, which are highly volatile and have fallen in value in recent days. The mayors' embrace of crypto is also a recognition that its underlying blockchain technology -- essentially a distributed ledger system -- may create new revenue streams for cities and reshape some basic functions of local government.
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> "Mayors rationally want to attract high-income citizens who pay their taxes and impose few costs on the municipality," said Joseph Grundfest, a business professor at Stanford. "Crypto geeks fit this bill perfectly." But as with many ambitious crypto projects, it's unclear whether these local initiatives will ultimately amount to much. So far, most are either largely symbolic or largely theoretical. And the mayors' aims are partly political: Crypto boosterism has a useful bipartisan appeal, garnering popularity among both antigovernment conservatives and socially liberal tech moguls. "You can do these things because you want to be associated with dudes with AR-15s, or you want to be associated with Meta," said Finn Brunton, a technology studies professor at the University of California, Davis, who wrote a 2019 book about the history of crypto. "A lot of it is hype and hot air."
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/business/crypto-mayors.html
And fall. (Score:3)
Is generally the title of books on history.
Considering the crypto currencies are dropping (Score:2)
ATM I wonder how many are still on the "Crypto currencies will only go up, up, up forever" bandwagon.
Re: (Score:2)
> ATM I wonder how many are still on the "Crypto currencies will only go up, up, up forever" bandwagon.
I think it works like this:
Get a paycheck worth $X, in BTC.
If BTC is downward-trending at that moment, sell it immediately, thereby getting paid $X for their work.
If BTC is upward-trending at that moment, sit on it for a little bit, then sell it, thereby getting paid $X + Y for their work.
My guess this isn't about long-term investment or massive earnings, or any of that summary's babble about initiatives or high-income citizens. It's entirely about getting paid by the city in a highly volatile commod
Enquiring minds want to know (Score:4, Informative)
Is he really paid in bitcoin, as in .1 btc per pay period (or whatever is appropriate) or is he paid salary/price of btc today = ?btc on payday.
The former is really paid in bitcoin. The other is like me saying I am paid in company stock and mutual funds because on payday I get a deduction from my paycheck that goes to buy company stock and mutual funds. If the mayor is simply taking BTC as the payment for a fixed number of dollars - there is no difference in that than having your paycheck deposited into coindesk and buying btc after the check clears.
Prediction: (Score:4, Interesting)
This will end badly, as does all cryptobro dreams.