Last week in review: New York mayor wants crypto in schools

El Salvador building schools with bitcoin, US mayors get competitive about crypto, and Singapore is aiming to become a global crypto hub.

It was another busy week in crypto. Here’s our pick of the headlines.

New York mayor wants crypto in schools

• New York mayor-elect Eric Adams has said he wants young people to be educated on crypto.

• “When I talked about blockchain and Bitcoins, young people on the street stopped and asked me, ‘What is that?’”

• Adams, a former captain in the NYPD said he wants youths to know Bitcoin means a “new way of paying for goods and services throughout the entire globe.”

• “And that’s what we must do – open our schools to teach the technology and teach this new way of thinking,” said Adams.

• Asked if crypto could make its way into the education system as a method of payment for tuition, Adams said they’re considering it, but treading carefully as they “want to get it right.”

• Similarly to Miami mayor Francis Suarez, Adams has also said he wants to take his initial salary in Bitcoin.

• “In New York we always go big, so I’m going to take my first three paychecks in Bitcoin when I become mayor,” Mr Adams wrote in a Twitter post.

Miami mayor set to receive salary in Bitcoin

• Miami mayor Francis Suarez has pledged to take his next paycheck in Bitcoin.

• “I feel very comfortable getting my entire salary in Bitcoin,” he said in an interview with Fox Business. He also mentioned that he wants to make salaries paid in Bitcoin an option to city employees.

• “We want our employees to have that option but it’s certainly not going to be something that we’re going to force on them, ” he said

• While Suarez believes that receiving salary in BTC is a personal choice, among his own reasons is that he believes BTC is a hedge against inflation.

• “When governments are spending the kind of money that they are, when you have inflation at the point that it is, when you have rampant overspending in government and deficit spending, all of that pushes in favour of an increase in the price of Bitcoin,” said Suarez.

• Suarez, who is up for re-election, has long been a proponent for Bitcoin, and has previously shared his intentions to make Miami the crypto capital of the United States. Miami is also the host of one of the largest annual Bitcoin conferences in the world.

El Salvador to build schools with bitcoin

• Using surplus from its Bitcoin Fund, El Salvador will construct 20 “bitcoin schools.”

• The announcement of the plans came in a series of live tweets from Casa Presidencial, the office of President Nayib Bukele, as part of an event where he laid the first stone of El Salvador’s first veterinary hospital funded by bitcoin.

• “I want to announce that with a few million that we have left from the profits of bitcoin we are going to build the first 20 schools, fully equipped and modern,” the president said via a Casa Presidencial tweet.

• The Bitcoin profits amount to $4 million and is coming from the Salvadoran Trust for the Adoption of Bitcoin, or Fidebitcoin. Fidebitcoin was set up after El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in September, and currently has $150 million in reserves. The trust is also managed by the Bank for the Development of El Salvador.

Singapore aims to become global crypto hub

• Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), has said they’re looking to use their first mover advantage to benefit from cryptocurrency.

• “Getting early into that game means we can have a head start, and better understand its potential benefits as well as its risks,” said Menon. “[We’re] interested in developing crypto technology, understanding blockchain, and smart contracts.”

• Earlier this year, the MAS announced they had already received 170 applications for payment services licenses, bringing the total number of applicants under the Payment Services Act since January 2020 to 400. Nevertheless, Singapore won’t rush approvals.

• “We don’t need 160 of them to set up shop here. Half of them can do so, but with very high standards – that, I think, is a better outcome,” said Menon.