Missouri Mayor proposes giving every resident Bitcoin
The bullishness of municipalities continues in the United States. If you thought it was only institutions ready to dive into Bitcoin, think again. More and more elected officials are realizing the power of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and more so on the local level than the federal level. Today, A Missouri mayor, Jayson Stewart, is “raising funds to give each resident up to $1000 in Bitcoin.” Although Mayor Stewart is adding one caveat, they can’t sell it, they can only hodl it.
That’s right, the Cool Valley, Missouri Mayor, leading the tiny town of 1,152 people north of St. Louis, could be the first in the country to give out Bitcoin to every resident. He is not just talking, either–Stewart is already raising funds to give each resident Bitcoin. You would think something like this would happen in a buzzing tech city, somewhere on the coast–but no.
It is one of the most obscure and untrodden towns in America pioneering this; showing that Bitcoin usually finds it way first into the places that you would least expect, like El-Salvador. It is a state where the most common job is truck driving and nursing, not coding and programming, but people still know about Bitcoin and Satoshi. Interviewed by a local news outlet about the announcement, one resident of Cool Valley, a mail-carrier said: “my daughter says she thinks it’s the next big thing. The digital currency.”
The Mayor knows the shot about Bitcoin. “Look, it’s digital gold,” said Mayor Stewart. “I would like to see every single household in my city receive some level of Bitcoin, whether it be $500 or $1,000.” Stewart believes citizens holding Bitcoin could transform their lives. “I have friends whose lives have been completely changed, like going from working a regular nine to five job to being worth over 80 million dollars in a matter of a few years,”
Regarding the funding of this project, Stewart said that most of the money to fund it will “come from several unnamed Bitcoin investors.” It is a similar idea to what played put in El-Salvador, when President Bukele offered every citizen 18 or older $30 in Bitcoin. Stewart said he has supportive donors that will match any money raised up to several million dollars. He is also planning on using government funds, as well as Covid relief funds to accomplish this.
Notably, Stewart says that the caveat coming with this project is he would try and restrict resident selling for “a few years”. “We’re putting in place like a vesting schedule for Bitcoin. The idea is that maybe you don’t touch it for five years before you really get full access to it. We’re working on ideas like that because that’s my number one concern. Someone just sells their bitcoin to pay their car note. And then when Bitcoin is sitting at like $500,000 all these years later, they’re going to really regret that,”
Local news KSDJK spoke to residents in the city, saying that the dozen or so they interviewed were receptive to the plan. One resident spoke to how this Bitcoin would be passed down generationally, tapping into what Michael Saylor has said about Bitcoin, in that it’s like “digital real estate in downtown Manhattan.” Putting this Bitcoin away for each resident is an innovative way to create a sort of community trust of Bitcoin, that would raise the net worth of each individual, and thus the city.
Stewart said that they are going to offset the potential environmental effects of the Bitcoin by converting the entire city to solar, in terms of government facilities. He wants to create a task force to go “door-to-door” to preach Bitcoin and offer free classes to educate citizens about how to use Bitcoin and store it–maybe cold wallets for Cool Valley? It appears Bitcoin evangelism is in full swing in the bible belt of the United States. If an announcement like this doesn’t indicate a revolution, I don’t know what does. Bitcoin is becoming a voting issue, and thus, an issue politicians must address when running for office, even in America’s smallest towns.
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