Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who has accepted his salary in Bitcoin and vowed to make the city a Bitcoin hub, has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for President in the 2024 election. Suarez, who has been elected twice in Miami, joins a growing Republican field seeking to unseat President Joe Biden.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Miami – also called Magic City – saw an influx of tech workers from Silicon Valley and New York, with several crypto firms relocating there permanently. Suarez has been a proponent of Bitcoin, saying in a 2021 interview with journalists that it has a democratizing impact on the future of wealth for every American. He also announced MiamiCoin (MIA), built on the Bitcoin adjacent blockchain, Stacks, which he hoped could someday pay a recurring BTC stimulus to Miami citizens.
By 2022, MIA had shed roughly 95% of its value from an all-time high of around 5 cents eight months earlier, according to data from CoinMarketCap. In March, crypto exchange OKCoin suspended the trading of MIA – and a second city coin, NYCCoin – citing limited liquidity as the reason for the decision.
Despite MIA’s struggles, Suarez remains a believer in crypto. People ask me the same thing about Bitcoin, the fact that it’s lost more than 50% of its value, but that doesn’t change my feelings about the fundamental technology, Suarez said in a 2022 CoinDesk interview.