Miami Mayor Announces Plan to Start Paying Residents Who Use Cryptocurrency: Could Become ‘a City That Runs Without Taxes’

Mayor Francis Suarez (R) said Wednesday Miami was to set to become “the first city in America” to provide bitcoin dividends to its residents.

“We’re going to be the first city in America to give a bitcoin yield as a dividend directly to its residents,” Suarez said in an interview with CoinDesk TV. He said the dividend would come from staking MiamiCoin, the digital currency the city developed this year. Staking involves holding cryptocurrencies in a digital wallet that allows them to participate in validating transactions on a network.

Suarez said MiamiCoin has earned more than $20 million for the city over the last three months. If the number stays consistent at $80 million or more annually, Suarez noted it would represent a fifth of Miami’s $400 million in yearly tax revenue, presenting a possibility for it to become “a city that runs without taxes.”

In the meantime, he said Miami would use some of its revenue from the currency to generate interest in the form of bitcoin, which it will pay to residents who hold MiamiCoin.

“We’re going to take our first draw on the first $20 million, and we’re going to stake the remaining balance in bitcoin,” Suarez said. “We’re going to … be the first city in America to give a bitcoin yield as a dividend directly to its residents. So we’re going to create digital wallets for our residents, and we’re going to give them bitcoin directly from the yield of MiamiCoin.”

Miami under Suarez’s leadership has been a pioneer in the early adoption of cryptocurrency. Suarez announced last week that he would take his next payment as mayor using a dollar-to-bitcoin conversion service, motivating New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams to announce that he would take his first three payments in the form of bitcoin.

Watch above via CoinDesk.