Bitcoin ATM Operator Says Too Early to Predict Competitiveness of MiamiCoin
22:28 GMT 09.08.2021 (Updated: 20:55 GMT 19.10.2022)
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Ekaterina Chukaeva - It's too early to say whether MiamiCoin, the new cryptocurrency recently launched by the city of Miami, will be competitive with other digital currencies, Andrew Barnard, chief executive of Bitstop - which installed the first bitcoin ATM machine in Miami in 2015 - told Sputnik.
Last week, Miami presented its own cryptocurrency as the city is looking to gather more funding for local projects. The city teamed with CityCoins, which designs cryptocurrency for municipalities, to launch the new digital token. According to CityCoins, MiamiCoin will provide an "ongoing crypto revenue stream for the city."
"It's probably too early to be able to say that it will be competitive with other cryptocurrencies, but most cryptocurrencies are relative to one another and therefore, naturally competitive. Miamicoin will be no different," Barnard said.
He believes that the real question is whether Miamicoin can be competitive with "other city associated cryptocurrencies long-term."
"This is the main point of the cryptocurrency: to establish a market signal to the performance and sentiment of a City or state via a cryptocurrency and allow markets to compare these citycoins against one another," he explained.
The main factor in the success or the failure of the cryptocurrency will be overall support and endorsement from the city, according to Barnard.
"Miamicoin is actually not endorsed in any way by the City of Miami or the County of Miami-Dade. It's a big misconception. It's actually a grassroots initiative that hopes to collect support and endorsement overtime by building up and bootstrapping a cryptocurrency for the city and attaching a monetary bounty to it in the form of Stacks to incentivize support by the city of Miami or county of Miami-Dade," he explained.
Meanwhile, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has high hopes for the new cryptocurrency, and he has already told local media that the city is capable of earning millions of dollars as a result of the popularity of MiamiCoin, adding that Miami can become a cryptocurrency capital.
