Miami Mayor 'Exploring' Ideas in Crypto Governance

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez may try to turn his city into a hotbed for cryptocurrency innovation.

Suarez tweeted Thursday that he is "absolutely exploring" making Miami, the seventh-largest city in the U.S., home to the country's first crypto-centric municipal government, seemingly endorsing concepts from tokenization to on-chain voting. He tagged new city resident Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner of Morgan Creek Digital and a crypto Twitter celebrity, for help.

In a subsequent tweet, Suarez said he wants South Florida "on the vanguard of legislation that promotes crypto and makes us forward-leaning on innovation." He said he'd reach out to Wyoming's blockchain doyenne, Caitlin Long, for assistance on that front.

Suarez has been pushing recently for Silicon Valley discontents and hopeful tech startups, fed up with California's taxes and regulations and particularly San Francisco's crime-ridden and feces-covered streets, to move to Miami. The crypto angle may well be the latest strategy of that bid.

Earlier Thursday, Suarez appeared to buy into bitcoin's growing appeal as an alternative investment with a tweet on Ben Mezrich's book about the Winklevoss twins, "Bitcoin Billionaires."