Miami City has shared plans to debut a cryptocurrency this summer to help drum up additional funding for local projects.
The City of Miami, Florida, has announced the upcoming launch of its own cryptocurrency in August. City officials state that the coin will help to boost revenue and expand the local economy. According to a report from Newsweek, Miami’s Mayor Francis Suarez stated that “The City of Miami could end up earning millions of dollars as a result of the popularity of MiamiCoin ($MIA), because obviously, Miami has now become the Bitcoin capital of the world.”
Miami will be using a new service called ‘CityCoin’ in order to launch MiamiCoin. The service is designed to allow cities to create bespoke digital coins to help raise funds for local projects.
CityCoin offers municipalities fundraising options
According to the Miami Herald, up to 30% of the funds raised by the new digital asset will be used to pay for fresh city initiatives. The report states that last week, Mayor Suarez submitted a resolution that gave the city permission to look into the possibility of taking in donations via a new crypto project named ‘CityCoin’. The initiative allows local municipalities to raise funds by creating tokens that are specific to their city. The goal is to fund city projects using funds from fans or citizens of the city who want to participate and support MiamiCoin. As it stands, state and federal laws prohibit cities from accepting or holding any currency other than the dollar so, funds will be converted before transferring to Miami.
Miami’s Chief Information Officer, Michael Sarasti, said that the money could be used for “roads, parks, regional resilience,” adding that, “the idea is [MiamiCoin users] are making an investment in the quality of the city’s future.” Sarasti adds that the funds have to be used because the CityCoin protocol states that the 30% earmarked cannot be used for other purposes.
While the resolution from the Mayor passed unanimously, reports indicate that numerous commissioners are unsure that CityCoin can be trusted to hold up their end of the deal. Founder of CityCoin, Patrick Stanley, puts those fears to rest by reminding officials that software is in place to automatically carry out transferring the digital currency to the city as US dollars.
$MIA is scheduled to go live on August 3 and will mark the first CityCoin project to hit the market. So far, San Francisco is the only other city confirmed to have signed on, but no word on when $SF will be released.
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