CityCoins, the cryptocurrency group behind digital currencies devoted to Miami and New York Metropolis, might goal Austin, Texas, for its subsequent city-based cryptocurrency, however officers there advised StateScoop they had been unfamiliar with the platform.
On the web site for CityCoins, a nonprofit group of builders and cryptocurrency advocates, customers in October voted to create a brand new digital foreign money referred to as AustinCoin that, if activated and mined, would start funneling the cryptocurrency right into a digital pockets that’s solely accessible by the Metropolis of Austin. The brand new coin, referred to as ATXCoin for brief, would divert 30% of each coin that’s mined right into a digital pockets put aside for town authorities.
However Austin Chief Info Officer Chris Stewart stated town should do extra analysis earlier than it commits to spending any ATXCoin.
“That is the primary I’ve heard of this platform, however I’m to see the way it evolves right here in Austin,” Stewart wrote.
Miami metropolis commissioners voted in September to permit town to withdraw funds from the digital pockets, which has reached $27 million. New York Metropolis, in the meantime, has not formally acknowledged its digital pockets, which now comprises $28 million.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler told Fox News final month that adopting an Austin cryptocurrency “is definitely one thing to think about,” noting town’s eagerness to assist develop new applied sciences.
The Texas state authorities has spent a lot of this 12 months courting cryptocurrency mining corporations and entrepreneurs, telling state banks in June that they’re allowed to safeguard their prospects’ cryptocurrency property. Financial institution prospects who maintain bitcoin or one other cryptocurrency can ask Texas banks that provide the service to both retailer a duplicate of their personal key or switch their digital foreign money to the financial institution for holding.
With low-cost vitality and a Bitcoin-friendly administration below Gov. Greg Abbott, massive worldwide bitcoin mining corporations have additionally set up shop in Texas over the previous 12 months, together with a number of in Austin. The professional-cryptocurrency setting across the metropolis and state may entice CityCoins miners to maneuver ahead with the AustinCoin, CityCoins co-founder Patrick Stanley advised StateScoop.
“AustinCoin will not be activated but,” Stanley wrote in an e-mail. “The neighborhood might resolve to in the event that they really feel the mayor is actually a technological progressive, like [New York City Mayor-elect] Eric Adams and [Miami Mayor] Francis Suarez have been. There’s additionally a little bit of a 1st mover benefit to technologically progressive mayors as they will do extra good for his or her metropolis, quicker by being responsive.”
Stanley told StateScoop in September that cities that may venture a picture of being technologically savvy improve the chance that persons are going to mine the coin of that metropolis, driving up its value and elevating the worth of that metropolis’s digital pockets. Suarez in Miami and Adams in New York have each been outspoken about their perception in cryptocurrencies, even providing to immediately convert parts of their paychecks to bitcoin.
