New York City Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Miami on Tuesday to speak at a conference on cryptocurrency — a boom-bust form of virtual cash, which has gained notoriety in recent years.
The private soirée at the Ritz-Carlton also featured Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, another high-profile proponent of the computer-based tender, with whom Adams has a friendly rivalry. City Hall did not respond to requests for a transcript of Hizzoner’s remarks.
It’s Adams’ latest high profile embrace of cryptocurrency, which he touted repeatedly on the campaign trail as a way to demonstrate his openness to New York’s finance and technology sectors — including promising to convert his first two paychecks into the digital dollars.
However, the wild swings in the cryptocurrency markets meant that Adams’ investment may have lost nearly 20 percent of its value in the first week.
Cryptocurrency is virtually unregulated and has been fiercely criticized by law enforcement and financial experts as a potential tool for oligarchs to easily move money.
Environmentalists have slammed the cryptocurrency because the massive server farms needed to generate each unique ‘coin’ require so much electricity that old and heavily polluting power plants have avoided shutdowns.
