Miami Mayor Francis Suarez would like the next President of the United States to be pro-Bitcoin.
Suarez said this while speaking at the Digital Mining Energy Conference organized by Bitmain, precisely in the city in Florida that aspires to become a Bitcoin hub.
Francis Suarez: Bitcoin, an opportunity
In his keynote address, the Mayor of Miami spoke about how he has helped to create an alternative Silicon Valley in his city.
He recalled that it was the first city to put Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper on its website.
Since then, Miami has made huge strides. So much so that its Mayor was able to praise the growth with these words:
“Miami is ranked first in the nation for new tech job growth, creating 8000 jobs, and has moved over 800 billion dollars of assets under management in the last 16 months. None of these would be possible without understanding the technological movement, Bitcoin, the blockchain, and companies like Bitmain mean to power the infrastructure of this new generation and revolution”.
But now is the time to move Bitcoin from the abstract to the concrete. The community must become – in his words – “evangelists” and explain how Bitcoin works and how it can improve society.
“Bitcoin is an opportunity for us”.
This is what Suarez said, giving the concrete example of a manufacturing industry converted into a Bitcoin mining farm. In this case BTC managed to secure numerous jobs.
The role of government in supporting Bitcoin
Suarez then spoke about how important the role of government is. When a country has a class of government that wants to be innovative, then you have what happened in Florida: laws supporting cryptocurrencies, and Miami being the capital of innovation.
But there are also cases where governments shut down certain sectors because they are afraid or create laws that make it impossible to do business.
In his view, it is important to understand that governments are afraid of losing control. He believes it is essential to demystify this concept of control. He explained this by recalling the case of Uber. Uber, he pointed out, created 14,000 drivers in a city where 25,000 taxi drivers were already operating.
This meant that there was also a demand for that kind of work, which had remained unfulfilled. Uber was too big to be regulated, yet it brought its benefits, and the same must happen with cryptocurrencies.
A pro-Bitcoin US President
Suarez also emphasized that we cannot de-technologize the world, we can only make sure that technology is used in a healthy way and that people can learn more and more about it.
To make this happen it is necessary to:
- Learn a way to simplify what’s going on;
- Learn to communicate change;
- Have a pro-Bitcoin President as the next President of the United States.
Biden and Bitcoin
President Joe Biden’s orientation towards cryptocurrencies has not yet been clearly defined. Certainly his right arm, Janet Yellen, has seemed more concerned about the risks than the opportunities. This could translate into stricter regulation.
Having a pro-Bitcoin president will avoid these risks. But Joe Biden’s term has just begun. We will have to wait until 2025 for another president who is open and able to contribute to the development of the sector. At that point though, we must hope it is not too late.
The post Francis Suarez: “We need a pro-Bitcoin US President” appeared first on The Cryptonomist.
