NYC Comptroller Rejects Mayor Adams’s “Bitbond” Proposal as Legally and Fiscally Flawed

Key Takeaways:

• New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander firmly rejected Mayor Eric Adams’s proposal to subject Bitcoin-backed municipal bonds.
• Lander warned that utilizing risky crypto belongings to fund infrastructure and housing initiatives might undermine investor confidence within the metropolis’s debt.
• Political tensions escalate as Lander (a mayoral candidate) positions himself as a fiscal pragmatist towards Adams’s crypto-friendly agenda.

New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander has rejected Mayor Eric Adams’s proposal to subject municipal bonds backed by Bitcoin, calling the thought each “legally doubtful and fiscally irresponsible.”

Lander, who shares duty for town’s debt issuance alongside the Mayor’s Workplace of Administration and Price range, made clear that town is not going to pursue any crypto-backed borrowing whereas he stays in workplace.

Bitbond Battle Brews in NYC as Election Rivals Conflict Over Crypto Coverage

Lander mentioned in an announcement on Thursday that “Cryptocurrencies should not sufficiently secure to finance our metropolis’s infrastructure, reasonably priced housing, or faculties,” in accordance with a report by Bloomberg.

He added, “Proposing that New York Metropolis ought to open its capital planning to crypto might expose our metropolis to new dangers and erode bond consumers’ belief in our metropolis.”

The response follows remarks made by Mayor Adams on Wednesday throughout his speech on the Bitcoin 2025 convention in Las Vegas.

Addressing a crowd of crypto lovers, Adams referred to as for the creation of a “Bitbond,” expressing his intention to make New York a nationwide chief in crypto innovation.

“We have to have a Bitbond, and I’m going to push and combat to get a Bitbond in New York,” Adams mentioned. “If it grows in New York, it would cascade by means of your entire nation.”

The mayor’s feedback come only a week after he hosted town’s first crypto and digital belongings summit at Gracie Mansion. There, he unveiled a digital belongings advisory council designed to spice up fintech funding and job creation within the metropolis.

However Lander pushed again arduous on the thought. He pointed to authorized and regulatory constraints that restrict how municipal bonds will be issued and used. In accordance with him, town can solely subject debt for particular public functions and should accomplish that in compliance with federal tax regulation.

“The present federal tax regulation regime would almost definitely neither allow tax-exempt financing for buying cryptocurrency nor allow funding beneficial properties in extra of the federally backed financing prices,” Lander mentioned.

He additionally emphasised that town doesn’t have any system in place to deal with infrastructure financing in cryptocurrencies or to transform digital belongings into U.S. {dollars}.

Adams, who’s looking for re-election this November as an impartial, didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Lander, a Democrat and a candidate for mayor himself, made clear that below his watch, Bitcoin-backed bonds received’t be a part of town’s fiscal technique.

With each candidates positioning themselves for November, the conflict over crypto coverage might develop into a defining subject within the race.

Mayor Echoes Trump’s Crypto Playbook Amid Rising Political Embrace of Digital Property

Mayor Adams is doubling down on crypto as a part of his re-election marketing campaign, echoing Donald Trump’s technique from final yr when Trump vowed to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.”

Trump’s actions included issuing an government order to create a digital asset job power and internet hosting the White Home’s first crypto summit in March with high business executives.

Adams, just lately cleared of corruption fees by the DOJ, a transfer that sparked backlash and resignations, has now develop into a distinguished face at crypto occasions.

In Las Vegas, he spoke on the business’s largest convention alongside figures like VP J.D. Vance and Senator Cynthia Lummis. These occasions, as soon as dominated by business leaders, now more and more function political figures.

At a facet occasion hosted by Tether co-founder Brock Pierce, Adams appeared once more, displaying a long-standing relationship courting again to his Brooklyn days. Final fall, Pierce even co-hosted a fundraiser for him in Puerto Rico.

Adams has championed crypto since his 2022 mayoral marketing campaign, famously changing his first three paychecks into Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Now, NYC is forming a digital asset advisory council to discover launching a “Bitbond.”

An analogous federal initiative, proposed by the Bitcoin Coverage Institute, suggests bonds partly backed by Bitcoin for a possible strategic reserve.

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