Miami is launching digital token called MiamiCoin, which the mayor has said will help the city develop its “tech ecosystem.”
The coin was developed through CityCoins, a grassroots initiative which allows users to mine coins for their favorite city while also taking a cut of the yield. The premise is that CityCoins can generate two types of cryptocurrency — bitcoin and stacks tokens (STX) — for miners while also diverting funds to treasuries reserved for specific cities. The process relies on the Stacks protocol, which is an open-source network that works alongside the Stacks blockchain.
MiamiCoin ($MIA), is the first CityCoin to market. In short, 30 percent of the yield is collected in a wallet reserved for Miami, while the remaining 70 percent goes to the miner.
Today @JoinFreehold and members of the Stacks community are announcing CityCoins (https://t.co/y1GN8LjGNy) with MiamiCoin ($MIA) being the first CityCoin.
CityCoins let you invest in your favorite city while earning for yourself.
Here’s how: ??
— patrickwstanley.btc (@PatrickWStanley) June 2, 2021
The Miami Herald first discussed the coin last month, which opened for digital mining on August 3. City officials said revenue from mining MiamiCoin could be used to fund the city’s civil initiatives.
“We could use it for roads, parks, regional resilience — the idea is [MiamiCoin users] are making an investment in the quality of the city’s future,” Michael Sarasti, Miami’s chief information officer and its director of innovation and technology, said last month. “They’re betting on Miami to be successful, and from a holder perspective, when Miami does better, their coin does better.”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told Fox Business last month that the city “could end up earning millions of dollars as a result of the popularity of MiamiCoin.”
“Miami has now become … the bitcoin capitol of the world, and we’re focusing on differentiating our economy by creating the new wave of technological products that will incentivize people to move to Miami and be part of our tech ecosystem,” he said.
Other governments have also started embracing cryptocurrency. In June, El Salvador became the first nation to recognize bitcoin as legal tender and it began offering citizens $30 USD worth of bitcoin to sign up to the government’s new crypto wallet.
