To promote crypto in NYC, its mayor-elect requests his salaries in Bitcoin

New York City’s mayor-elect Eric Adams said he wants his first three pay cheques on the job to be paid in Bitcoin, vowing to make the city the “center of the cryptocurrency industry.”

“NYC is going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast-growing, innovative industries, just wait,” he said on Twitter on Thursday.

“In New York,” he added, “we always go big, so I’m going to take my first THREE paychecks in Bitcoin when I become mayor.”

Adams, a Democrat, will in January become the second black mayor of the United States’ most populous city. He easily defeated Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels civilian safety patrol, in Tuesday’s election.

His post was a response to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who won re-election on earlier Tuesday, and wrote in a Twitter message of his own that he would take his pay cheque in Bitcoin.

In addition, the mayor-elect told Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday he wanted to create a New York City cryptocurrency and he would look at ways to persuade crypto companies to invest in the city.

Adams also said that he wants to explore a NYC Coin similar to Miami’s and betted a “friendly competition” with Suarez being the first to set up a so-called CityCoin cryptocurrency.

“He has a MiamiCoin that is doing very well — we’re going to look in the direction to carry that out,” Adams said. He vowed to “look at what’s preventing the growth of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in our city.”

As such, new data shows that many of America’s Bitcoin miners are based in NYC, Kentucky, Georgia, and Texas, according to Foundry USA. “Within the U.S., 19.9 percent of Bitcoin’s hash rate is in New York, 18.7 percent in Kentucky, 17.3 percent in Georgia, and Texas accounts for 14 percent,” it added.

U.S. media outlets Forbes and NBC News reported the New York City Department of Finance has yet to comment on whether Adam’s request to be paid in cryptocurrency would be approved.