The boulevards of Bitcoin are being built along Broadway and Biscayne Bay, in New York and Miami. Bitcoin and the Web3 world built on the blockchain are in a cyclical bull run, and consequently, they are attracting many more portfolio managers, retail investors and policymakers — including the current and future bosses of these big cities, Mayor Francis Suarez and Mayor-elect Eric Adams.

It’s both exciting and risky –– but the promise outweighs the possible pitfalls. If Bitcoin and the Web3 ecosystem can be compared to the user growth of the internet, then 2021 in those same metrics is still in the mid-1990s. Growth will not be linear, but it is inevitable.

So it is not at all unexpected that two of the U.S.’s financial hubs have crescive ecosystems of technologists and investors betting and building on new economic technology and asset classes. Acknowledging the inflection point in adoption is taking place at this present moment, Adams and Saurez have presented themselves as crypto-early adopters, ready to embrace the evangelism, receive their salaries in Bitcoin and welcome the economic potential that comes with any new technological shift.

Mayor Elect Eric Adams (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

In many ways, understanding this shift can be dizzying, and both leaders have had criticism lobbed at them. The new terms embedded within bits and blockchain are esoteric concepts involving decentralized autonomous organizations and non-fungible tokens with often vague value. It’s often because of this that misunderstanding breeds skepticism and derision: The crypto movement can appear cryptic, yet it reflects only the lightning-fast pace at which new ideas are being built, tested and scaled as technology.

The discontents are often threefold. Criticism about the energy usage of mining digital currencies, illicit money laundering or pump-and-dump schemes pile on despite a rapid shift to renewable energy for mining, increasing regulation and consumer education, and studies that show illicit activity is less than that of paper currencies. Blockchain technology, after all, is a public ledger where a transaction’s journey is permanently verifiable, unlike a greenback or other paper currency. That feature isn’t very useful for launderers as technology to search blockchain records becomes better at fishing out criminal or suspicious activity.

For New York and Miami, welcoming the blockchain, Web3, and cryptocurrency communities brings with it investment, startups, talent and knowledge. The total market capitalization of all crypto-assets is $2.64 trillion, and the annual business value of blockchain technology is expected to exceed $3 trillion by 2030. In the first nine months of 2021 alone, crypto startups raised $15 billion globally — over five times the sum of what was raised the previous year. If Midtown Manhattan needs its workers back, then startups that require a higher degree of in-person collaboration than larger firms can occupy many of those office spaces.

Consistently, the spillover of an incipient sector of the technology economy proves to be abounding and beneficial for a city, but also beyond its borders. Cryptocurrencies have the potential to bank the unbank, provide nondiscriminatory and cheaper loans to the underserved, reduce costs for remittances or making payments and increase access to investment and banking products. Projects to create tokenized carbon markets, verify sustainable supply-chain authenticity and secure blockchain voting only skim the service of the social good impact that entrepreneurs are working on.

Many of these projects will not succeed, and it would be folly to suggest that most of the money in these currencies is invested in doing good rather than making returns. But some ventures will change the world, create enormous economic value, and produce spin-offs locally that will go on to do the same.

New technology will always need its user evangelists, and in Adams and Suarez, crypto seems to have found its public-facing circuit riders. Around the world, there are many other cities around that are building crypto capitals including Zug, Kyiv, Singapore, Dubai and others. The Adams-Suarez match-up may turn into a tacit partnership to ensure the U.S. doesn’t lose this opportunity as other countries come to terms with the economic power of new financial technology. The competitive consociation of a Democrat and Republican in many ways reflects the neutrality of Bitcoin and the crypto-sphere — but also its potential for economic growth and good.

The media attention surrounding Miami, which attracted thousands of tech workers to relocate from the Bay Area and Silicon Valley last year, was a masterclass in public relations by Suarez. Mayor-elect Adams is welcoming the business and technology community in the same way that Suarez has and many other cities will. It is the right approach so long as boosterism doesn’t blend in with hucksterism.

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