Miami becoming a crypto hub

The Charging Bull of Wall Street vs the Miami Bull ?

Yesterday Bitcoin 2022 conference kicked off in Miami, and its crypto enthusiast mayor Francis Suarez presented the statue of a laser-eyed Bitcoin bull – a great symbol of crypto’s ambitions to take over the old finance. It also shows Miami’s plan to become one of the world’s financial centers, and crypto plays a key role in it.

Mayor Suarez introduced a number of incentives to attract crypto businesses to his city, advancing plans to pay city workers in BTC (Mayor Suarez himself takes his paychecks in Bitcoin since last autumn), allow paying city taxes in BTC, and even buying BTC for the city’s treasury.

He also helped launch MiamiCoin, a city crypto project that ambitions to distribute a Bitcoin yield to its residents.

These crypto-specific incentives together with the general tech-friendly approach (low-to-zero state and local income taxes, grant programs and fast-track registration) helped redefine Miami as a tech hub: venture capital inflow increased 200% year-on-year, and over $1Tr in assets under management has been moved to the city in just 16 months. As to Miami’s blockchain-focused startups, they have pulled over $760M in funding in 2021.

Bitcoin 2022 conference is another witness of a successful pro-crypto policy: this year it will attract up to 50’000 people from all over the world.

How many will decide to stay and develop their business in the sunny Miami?