administration has not yet signed onto the
project, despite celebrating the launch of a New
York City Coin in November.
Adams’ oice did not reply to questions about
whether the mayor was considering accepting
any funds from City Coins.
New York residents can’t currently buy the New
York coin because the lone exchange ofering
it isn’t licensed in the state. “We’re optimistic
that it’ll be approved by midyear,” said Larissa
Bundziak, a spokesperson for the exchange
Okcoin, which started ofering the New York coin
— to non-New Yorkers — on Jan. 26.
Last week, some City Coins participants
expressed disappointment with how the
experiment is going so far and argued in a chat
room on the Discord app about whether the
group should launch cryptocurrencies in new
cities or wait for the value of the coins in Miami
and New York to prove themselves more.
“Getting a city to claim free money is easy,” one
participant wrote. “It takes more than that to
actually provide value,” so that in the long term,
there are good reasons for people to participate.