The newly elected, incoming Mayor for New York City, Eric Adams, is looking to revise school curriculums and business payment modes to educate students and inspire businesses to be more accepting of cryptocurrency.
Mayor Elect Wants Crypto In Schools
Eric Adams has held quite a pro-crypto stance in public. In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Adams urged local schools to teach students a crypto-friendly curriculum. In his words, the younger generation needs to learn this new way of thinking through a crypto curriculum incorporated in the local schools.
According to Adams, cryptocurrency studies should be taught in schools where young minds can learn about new developments brought about by blockchain technology and digital assets. Adam recounts a personal anecdote to highlight the low crypto awareness among younger New Yorkers.
“When I talked about blockchain and Bitcoins, young people on the street stopped and asked me, ‘What is that?’”
He further clarified that since New York is a global hub of technological innovations, he wants to channel that innovative energy towards cryptocurrency and blockchain and inspire the younger demographics to learn more about this industry.
NYC To Be “Crypto Hub” Under Mayor Adams
Adams also emphasized that New York needed to continue being a “center of innovation,” which is why he is planning to encourage NYC businesses to accept payments in BTC and other cryptocurrencies. However, he talked about the need to “tread carefully” with such plans in order to “get it right.” His policy platform includes plans to transform the city into the US crypto hub.
In another interview on Wednesday with Bloomberg Radio, Adams also discussed his plans of establishing a city-based crypto coin in New York similar to MiamiCoin.
Mixed Reaction To Mayor-Elect’s Comments
The response to these statements has incited mixed reactions from the crypto community and New Yorkers in general. Most of them have taken to Twitter to express their support or criticism of the Mayor-elect’s comments. While some have been cheering on Adams’s pro-crypto stance, others have questioned his decisions to hype up digital currencies soon after stating that he will accept his first three mayoral paychecks in BTC.
Harvard economist Jason Forman believes,
“Not only is this a bad economic strategy for NYC and a bad investment decision, it also seems like a conflict of interest. Like a Mayor announcing ‘I’m buying a lot of Amazon stock and then going to put in places policies to benefit Amazon.’”
