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Eric Adams is pulling a Donald Trump. Or he’s trying to, at least. That was my takeaway from the inaugural NYC Crypto Summit at Gracie Mansion last week.
Adams — New York’s controversial, no-longer-federally-indicted mayor — hasn’t talked about crypto much since taking office in 2022.
Adams promised on the campaign trail to take his first three paychecks in bitcoin. When the city’s Treasury department couldn’t make this happen, he opted to buy BTC and ETH himself on payday.
For the last several years, the War on Rats has been the Adams administration’s main focus. But last month, city officials announced the Crypto Summit — a press conference followed by private roundtable discussions with industry executives and city officials.
The purpose, Adams said, was to come up with new ways the city can leverage crypto and blockchain technology to create jobs, improve operations and expand access to financial services. The event was complete with speeches from Tether co-founder Brock Pierce and Bitcoin Center creator Nick Spanos. There was also an open bar starting at 2 pm.
Spanos (and most of the people at the roundtable, I’m told) is primarily interested in abolishing the BitLicense, the Department of Financial Services-issued business license digital asset companies need to operate in the state. The fact that the mayor of New York City does not have the authority to nix the BitLicense was not mentioned.
After a couple hours of roundtable discussion, the party moved outside. Hundreds of guests donning attire falling somewhere between “boardroom and ballroom,” per an attendee I spoke with, gathered under a tent in Gracie Mansion’s backyard for a post-summit reception. Several other attendees told me they only came to get a look inside the famous house.
It doesn’t take an experienced political strategist to gather that Adams is probably looking for money. His first words to the crowd on Tuesday were literally “I smell money.”
He’s running for re-election — this time as an independent — and his competition already has amassed big budgets. We all saw what crypto industry donations did for Trump’s campaign. I imagine Adams has been taking notes.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t or can’t see New York crypto policy evolve, and who knows what the new advisory council will come up with. But for now, I’m not holding my breath.
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