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NYC Mayor Adams Will Convert His City Paycheck To Cryptocurrency Via Coinbase (theverge.com) 45

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Following through on a plan he announced before he took office, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that his first paycheck, which arrives on Friday, will be converted from US dollars into cryptocurrency. The transaction will take place on Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, and will convert Adams' pay into Bitcoin and Ethereum. From a report: "New York is the center of the world, and we want it to be the center of cryptocurrency and other financial innovations," Adams said in a statement. "Being on the forefront of such innovation will help us create jobs, improve our economy, and continue to be a magnet for talent from all over the globe."
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NYC Mayor Adams Will Convert His City Paycheck To Cryptocurrency Via Coinbase More

NYC Mayor Adams Will Convert His City Paycheck To Cryptocurrency Via Coinbase

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  • They're trying to make cash obsolete...

    Guess we'll just have to use scrip

  • When the rich is converting their cash to alternative assets, you know the value of cash is going down.

    • Especially when one of the 'alternative assets' is something as janky as Bitcoin. If he wanted to impress anyone, he would be using stablecoins or one of the more-promising alts.

    • Re:Rich getting richer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eepok ( 545733 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @04:41PM (#62192821) Homepage

      Nah. This has all the hallmarks of a Coinbase sponsorship. They probably have guaranteed him the value of his paycheck (regardless of coin price) plus something extra. This guy is using his elected office to promote a product from which he seeks to profit.

      • Yup, this ^

      • My thoughts also. Who makes him whole when the thing drops 25%? Coinbase or the taxpayer?

        • Neither. Fidelity doesn't "make anybody whole" when my portfolio drops. Why would Coinbase be any different? And it's certainly not on the taxpayers / city treasury to pay more (or less) than his mandated salary.

          I'm not really sure why this thread has turned to baseless allegations of bribery.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
            This is Slashdot, when it comes to news, every action done by anyone is nefarious, or best case they are just stupid.

      • Nah. This has all the hallmarks of a Coinbase sponsorship. They probably have guaranteed him the value of his paycheck (regardless of coin price) plus something extra. This guy is using his elected office to promote a product from which he seeks to profit.

        I suspect that, like most politicians, he can afford to use his salary as a political tool because it's not where the majority of his income comes from.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Well, it would have been a better FP, but it's still a ridiculous assertion. First, Adams isn't rich. Second, the people who are actually rich are not going to cryptocurrency. It's a dream asset, mostly for wild speculators who dream of becoming rich, and the story makes me worry that Adams is too much of a dreamer.

    • Naah. Bitcoin's becoming yet another way to say, "Hey, look how rich I am! I can throw money into risky bets & not care if I lose it all."
  • Good luck buying that Latte when there's a power outage.

    • Something tells me this guy doesn't live paycheck to paycheck.

    • Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bandraginus ( 901166 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:16PM (#62192913)

      Good luck making a Latte when there's a power outage.

      • Something tells me the shop would give it to him if the power was out. You and I would be told to pound the pavement.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by suss ( 158993 )

      How are they going to make that latte without power?

    • Within my group of friends, I don't think a single person has used cash since the beginning of the pandemic. Some of my friends have cash in their wallets that they received over a year ago. Even extremely cash-sticky businesses, like bars, have almost entirely converted to accepting credit cards. If a business was reliant on cash payers, it would now quickly close down.

      Meanwhile, everyone paying cash is effectively paying a 2% sales tax to Big Finance. Credit card companies charge merchants about 2.5% surc

  • He doing it so none of his cash will be stolen when he's mugged in NYC.

    • He doing it so none of his cash will be stolen when he's mugged in NYC.

      This way he will lose it when the exchange is "hacked".

  • Sound Money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 20, 2022 @04:45PM (#62192831)
    "Sound Money" - @davetroy [twitter.com]:

    There are people who are genuinely trying to talk intelligently about cryptocurrencies, but can’t because they don’t have historical background. This thread tries to correct that by suggesting required reading. First, it’s necessary to know what problem it attempts to solve.

    Bitcoin is designed to be "sound money." It can’t be controlled by government. What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours, and can’t be "diluted" by shadowy "central bankers," lurking in their urban apartments, smoking cigars — or worse, eating lox bagels.

    This has been an obsession of a certain kind of person for over 100 years. Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) was an early propaganda piece out of Russia, later amplified by Henry Ford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    /The creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 terrified the industrial aristocratic class; the mob was at the gate. They were coming for their money, one way or another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    The rich did not take this lying down. They began to organize. In 1933 they tried to overthrow the US government and capture or kill FDR, to restore the Gold Standard (sound money) and kill the Federal Reserve. They were not successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Meanwhile another idea had taken root: race science, funded for decades by industrialist backers. Also known as "Eugenics," the theory was that humans could only evolve if "superior" genes were propagated, requiring "competition" and "free markets." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    In 1937, Wickliffe Draper started the Pioneer Fund, which for decades would support a range of "race science" inquiries and informed "research" developing in Nazi Germany. Remember the "Bell Curve?" That’s Pioneer Fund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    A weird cult group called "I AM" also got underway in the 1930’s. It was obsessed with gold (“sound money") and chanted: "Blast blast blast the Roosevelts from this earth." Robert LeFevre was convicted in 1940 for his role in the gold cult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    LeFevre would go on to found the "Freedom School," which laid the foundation for and promoted American libertarianism and Austrian economics. One pupil and supporter of the Freedom School? Charles Koch (see Dark Money, by Jane Mayer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    By the late 50’s, the "sound money" goal wasn’t any closer. Candy magnate Robert Welch founded the John Birch Society to avenge "creeping communism" (the enemy of sound money) in the US. Eisenhower was too pinko for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    A similar "anti-communist" movement had been brewing globally, and reunited wartime fascists with emerging networks in Asia (Taiwan, South Korea, etc). The World Anti-Communist League aligned with JBS and "sound money" policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    American libertarianism as promoted by LeFevre was heavily influenced by "Austrian School" economics, which posited that individual gain and competition determined all economic activity, and deduced a framework from that. (Narrator: it’s nonsense.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    S

  • Meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @04:50PM (#62192847)

    Meanwhile China made illegal all cryptocurrency transactions [slashdot.org] last September, citing concerns around national security and safety of people's assets, and the Central Bank of Russia has called today for a full ban on cryptocurrency [slashdot.org], citing the risk of undermining the national economy and the increased complexity for the regulator to maintain optimal monetary policies.

    Cryptocurrencies have proven they are not financial innovations (as Addams says in the summary), but dangerous tools that cannot work as a currency because their huge transfer costs and volatility, that cannot work as investment because of eventual frauds in which you lost it all, and that are mainly used to build scams while having a huge negative environmental impact.

    Is this what NY wants to bet for?

    • Meanwhile.... Other Big City Mayor buys Pokémon Cards with paycheck... film at 11.

    • Russia and China have problems with the truth. Not surprising they'd outlaw it.

    • Meanwhile China made illegal all cryptocurrency transactions [slashdot.org] last September, citing concerns around national security and safety of people's assets, and the Central Bank of Russia has called today for a full ban on cryptocurrency [slashdot.org], citing the risk of undermining the national economy and the increased complexity for the regulator to maintain optimal monetary policies.

      Yes, when the major totalitarian dictatorships in the world are rallying against something, that surely is a sign we should follow their footsteps.

    • Cryptocurrency has a use as long as countries enforce unjust laws on drugs, many of which show enormous promise in mental health and growth. Does it make sense as a day-to-day currency and investment? Hell no! The whole thing is a Ponzi scheme and at some point will come crashing down but only after it has melted a few glaciers in the process!

  • ... to a problem that didn't exist.

  • center of the world (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:44PM (#62193003)

    >"New York is the center of the world,"

    Yeah, I think that belief might be indicative of at least some of New York's problems.

  • On the other hand, if he does get hacked, it will speed regulations which are much needed for this new form of security. Although what is really needed is to also ban^H^H^Hregulate commercial miners.

    In case you weren't sure, I think the whole thing has become a waste of resources.
  • ... is made, he might be able to move that currency off coinbase.
  • He should be using Gemini as it's an NYC based company and way less corrupt than coinbase. Coinbase trades on their own platform.

  • "New York is the center of the world"

    Oh dear, that little dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean will be most disappointed....

  • To have enough money laying around that you can take your entire pay check and screw around with it crypto.

    • The price of Bitcoin is down almost 11% and Ethereum is off by 14% over the last day. Very few family checkbooks could afford a hit like that, even if the value does comeback. You'd be better off with WW2 era German Marks. At least you would know to run to the grocery store tonight before their value falls.

  • From our Not Clear On The Concept department:

    New York is the center of the world, and we want it to be the center of cryptocurrency

    NYC to centralize cryptocurrency...mayor buys a bunch of Bitcoin...

  • It's unclear what this is attempting to prove; it sort of carries the same vibe as politicians in the early 2000s calling their initiatives i-This and Cyber-That. "New York is the center of the world" is particularly tone deaf; the entire point to the cryptocurrency movement is that there is no "center" - because a central authority is a central source of surveillance and a central point of failure. The last two years have also proven that there is no longer any intrinsic need for a physical, geographical h

  • Tell me you don't understand cryptocurrency, without telling me you don't understand cryptocurrency.

    "New York is the center of the world, and we want it to be the center of cryptocurrency and other financial innovations," Adams said in a statement. "Being on the forefront of such innovation will help us create jobs, improve our economy, and continue to be a magnet for talent from all over the globe."

    There is zero upside to crypto for the economy of NYC. If the mayor thinks there is, then that's a pretty clear indication he's not qualified to be mayor of anywhere, never mind NYC.

    Crypto is a giant Ponzi scheme [jwz.org] (one that is torching the environment to boot [digiconomist.net]), and his public announcement is at best a sign of his own stupidity. At worst it is a deliberate attempt to participate in the scheme by normalizing c

  • Wow, he is so hip. My hero.

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