MIAMI – City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has been all in on crypto from the start.
On Wednesday, Local 10 News’ Layron Livingston was able to catch up with Suarez about the crypto crash in general, and specifically MiamiCoin.
“Crypto, right now, is sort of in a winter, where it’s not doing so well,” said Suarez. “Like I’ve said before, you know some projects are going to do well and some projects are not going to do well, and obviously MiamiCoin is one that had a great potential. I think it was a good idea in its inception but, in its execution, unfortunately, like a lot of crypto projects, did not succeed.”
Livingston asked Suarez if he thinks any onus should be placed on himself for folks getting behind it, initially, and losing about 90 percent of their investment.
“I think we live in a world where people want to assign blame, so, it’s normal for people to feel that way,” Suarez said. “From my perspective, obviously, from the city’s perspective, as a project, it was a project that was going to give a percentage of its revenue to the city, which it did. I think the city benefited to tune of $5 million in a rental assistance program, and an additional $3 million in a digital wallet, so it was a big success for the city. Obviously for the people who invested in it, it wasn’t, and you wish that it would’ve been, for sure.”
Suarez was asked by Livingston if he was personally impacted by MiamiCoin’s drop in value and whether he thinks it will last.
“Oh yeah, absolutely. The very little that I invested in it, I lost,” Suarez said. “I think that particular project, I’m not sure will ever survive, per se, but I do think that it will create the genesis for other ideas that are similar, that may be successful.”
“MiamiCoin, specifically, do you think it survives,” asked Livingston.
“I don’t know, it’s impossible to tell,” Suarez replied. “I doubt it, unless they change some of the tokenomics of it, but it doesn’t seem like it will.”
The mayor pointed to Bitcoin, which has also lost value, but he doesn’t see bitcoin going away.
Suarez said he’s not aware of any other city staff members who get their salary in bitcoin, but he says he has been, and stands by the decision.