On June 2, 2021, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez tweeted that “MiamiCoin” would be the first “CityCoin” ever to be launched, representing Miami’s very personal cryptocurrency. Quick ahead about two months later and the anticipation surrounding the release of MiamiCoin has been on the rise.
Initially, it might seem as if Magic Metropolis’s digital currency will operate identical to different cryptocurrencies that may be purchased, sold, and traded to revenue each buyer and the town of Miami. But, “MiamiCoin” is kind of distinctive from different digital currencies.
A developer platform for cities
Patrick Stanley, founder, and CEO of CityCoins — the project behind MiamiCoin — informed that MiamiCoin (MIA) can really be a developer platform for cities. “MiamiCoin, being the first-ever CityCoin, is totally programmable. Subsequently, functions can simply be constructed on prime of it,” mentioned Stanley.
Particularly talking, CityCoins is a project constructed on Stacks, which is an open-source community of decentralized applications (DApps) and good contracts constructed adjacent to the Bitcoin blockchain. Because of this MiamiCoin, which was officially activated on August 3, may very well be as a DApp powered by the Stacks community — a wise contract platform constructed on the Bitcoin community. As such, Stanley defined that MiamiCoin can’t be pre-mined or purchased for the time being:
“The community launched MiamiCoin, so everybody has to mine $MIA fairly and equally. This represents open membership mining, which is identical idea as when Satoshi launched Bitcoin. Mining officially started on August 4.”
Relating to the tokenomics behind MiamiCoin, Stanley talked about that in the course of the first two weeks of mining MIA, the bottom currency getting used to mine CityCoin — which is Stacks’ STX token — will go immediately right into a reserved pocket claimed by town of Miami. After two weeks, 30% of all these funds will stay within the reserved pockets, whereas 70% will probably be allotted to the miners.
Stanley additionally shared that as a result of CityCoins is powered by Stacks, customers will be capable of swap between MIA and Bitcoin (BTC) when performing a Bitcoin transaction. “We take into account Bitcoin as one thing that may energy many different functions, although it’s presently underutilized,” commented Stanley. To his level, most DApps are presently constructed on Ethereum, which noticed a lot of elevated exercises last 12 months.
“Community money” enabled by crypto
An important level to notice right here is that 30% of the mined MIA will probably be allotted to the town of Miami. In line with an article revealed by The Miami Herald last month, city officers talked about that MiamiCoin may very well be used to construct roads, parks, and different public infrastructures.
Stanley noted that the town of Miami leveraging MIA for civic engagement is extraordinarily vital, given the community aspect behind CityCoins. In line with Stanley, CityCoins are in a small part a coin for geographies, which means those that are worth sure areas can present their assist by holding digital currencies created for different cities. Stanley additionally remarked that over time, CityCoins will overflow to other communities throughout various areas.
Whereas futuristic, this idea was a part of the explanation why the cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin pledged to checklist MIA on its platform. Haider Rafique, chief advertising officer at Okcoin, informed that there have been a few traditionally compelling tasks and groups that have taken a very long time to reach in America. Rafique believes that CityCoins may doubtlessly put collectively an ecosystem for various functions:
“By opening these markets, we carry buyers in who can purchase these property after which additional discover these ecosystems. For instance, Stacks has various decentralized finance applications to work together with. We see CityCoins as having that very same kind of utility.”
Furthermore, Rafique considers MiamiCoin to show a brand new manner for folks to leverage cryptocurrency to take part in civic engagement: “CityCoins isn’t just an incentive for retail buyers, but additionally for governing our bodies. Cryptocurrency shouldn’t simply be about hypothesis, but additionally about real-world utilization.” Rafique added that MIA will become tradable on Okcoin later on, once liquidity is created from mining.
Will the idea be broadly adopted?
Though it’s notable that Miami is the primary city to launch a CityCoins token, considerations around adoption and rules stay. Tim Shields, an accomplice at Kelley Kronenberg’s Fort Lauderdale legislation workplace, informed that he doesn’t assume MiamiCoin will lead to widespread adoption: “The technological scheme of how MiamiCoin works is pretty complicated and it’ll transcend the scope of most individuals who already maintain cryptocurrency.”
Whereas this can be, Shields does consider that MIA will assist additional develop Miami’s rising tech ecosystem. In line with Shields, MiamiCoin is yet one more effort that highlights Miami’s openness and pleasant stance towards cryptocurrency. Shields additionally remarked that Mayor Suarez has clearly been engaged in his purpose of creating Miami the Bitcoin capital of the world, and if nothing else, MiamiCoin exhibits metropolis mayor can appeal to innovation within the blockchain house.
Relating to rules, Shields defined that this may possibly be difficult, noting that he’s undecided how the town of Miami will maintain MIA. “This can be held as property after which transformed to money,” he remarked.
Ben Bartlett, Berkeley City Council member, and crypto lawyer informed that the risks with MiamiCoin look like in assessing liquidity for the tokens. Bartlett additionally talked about friction when leveraging MiamiCoin: “Peculiar folks don’t have the bandwidth to take care of the complexities of wallets and seeing out the appropriate trade. There could also be some regulatory points that must be fastidiously thought-about.”
Bartlett defined that is particularly the case in gentle of recent proposals laid out by the brand new digital asset infrastructure invoice that goals to increase the definition of brokers to incorporate miners and different linchpins of the crypto ecosystem.
Concerns apart, Bartlett stays hopeful that the city of Miami can resolve these points by adopting an agile method, guaranteeing well-liked participation whereas avoiding regulatory pitfalls. “I’m very excited and thankful for the mayor of Miami’s daring management. MiamiCoin represents the following stage of governance and shared prosperity,” stated Bartlett.
