The Mayor of Miami: Residents will receive dividends from the MiamiCoin cryptocurrency

The Mayor of Miami: Residents will receive dividends from the cryptocurrency MiamiCoin - miamiMiami Mayor Francis Suarez said on Thursday that the city aims to be the first in the United States to give its residents bitcoin as dividends from the proceeds generated by its own cryptocurrency.

What is MiamiCoin

MiamiCoin, the city's cryptocurrency that works on the Stacks protocol, was announced in early June. The idea is that every time the so-called miners create MiamiCoin, they keep 70% of it while the remaining 30% goes into the city's digital wallet.

Suarez told Coindesk.com in an interview last Thursday that the city plans to give MiamiCoin proceeds directly to residents in the form of bitcoin.

"We will be the first city in America to distribute the bitcoin yield as a dividend directly to its residents," he said. The plan, he explained, is to create digital wallets for residents of the city where the city will deposit MiamiCoin proceeds.

According to the website miamining.com, the city's digital wallet generated revenues of $ 22,2 million in the past three months. Suarez said it equates to about $ 80 million when annualized, which could cover a fifth of the city's tax revenue.

“At some point you could theoretically pay the entire city tax revenue and the city could be a city that operates tax-free, which I think would be revolutionary,” he said.

How does it work?

The problem presented now is how this program will work. For example, who will be entitled to dividends? "First you have to define the universe," he said. “And that in itself will be a challenge. Will it be, for example, the taxpayers, will it be the people who vote in the city, will it be the people who have an address in the city? So it will be a challenge ".

Tech companies will need to be contacted to create the wallets and a registration and verification system to prevent fraud and those moving to Miami simply to collect dividends, he said.

The announcement comes in the wake of CityCoin, the company behind MiamiCoin, which announced Wednesday that a more smiling token called NYCCoin was launched in New York City. The token aligns with Mayor-elect Eric Adams' vision for the city. He said he expects to receive his first three salaries in bitcoin.

"NYC will be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast growing innovative industries!" he tweeted late last week. "Wait up!" Adams's announcement came in response to Suarez days earlier saying he would be the first American politician to be paid in bitcoin with his next salary.

During the interview with Coindesk.com, Suarez stated that he and Adams are friends but have a rivalry with cryptocurrencies. “We are kind of encouraging each other,” he said. "There's also this friendly rivalry between cities for being the first Web 3.0 city."