Key Takeaways
- Vancouver City Council passed a motion to consider Bitcoin as a financial reserve.
- The council has given lawmakers three months to explore the pros and cons of using BTC as a reserve and mode of payment.
- Mayor Ken Sim proposed the pro-Bitcoin motion.
Vancouver’s city council has passed a motion to explore using Bitcoin (BTC) as a treasury reserve and allow Bitcoin payments for city taxes and services. The pro-Bitcoin motion proposal came as the BTC price reclaimed $100,000.
Mayor Ken Sim spearheaded the motion, calling for the city’s financial reserves to be diversified to include Bitcoin payment options.
The Vancouver City Council’s proposal and subsequent acceptance of the Bitcoin motion could begin a new era. Until now, public Bitcoin companies like MicroStrategy and Tesla, along with 89 others, have started hoarding Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset along with the United States dollar.
Vancouver Mayor Is a Big Time Crypto Advocate and Investor
According to his 2024 financial filings, Sim, who proposed the motion to the city committee, is a big-time crypto advocate and an investor in America’s first public crypto exchange, Coinbase.
Nearly a dozen council lawmakers responded positively to Sim’s proposal, saying the initiative could be a game changer.
Sim also promised to “donate $10,000 to the City of Vancouver in the form of Bitcoin, and this will be a gift to the city that we love” and added that “we totally believe in the benefits of this, and we’re putting our money where our mouth is.”
The council instructed the city employees to assess the consequences and viability of implementing the Bitcoin strategy in the first quarter. The council members must submit a report on this feasibility study within the next four months.
The suggestion emphasizes how Bitcoin might hedge against fiat currency depreciation. In particular, it would protect the city’s purchasing power.
The latest pro-Bitcoin initiative from the city council marks a dramatic change in the city’s policy. Five years ago, in 2019, former Mayor Kennedy Stewart tried to ban Bitcoin ATMs in the town despite being home to the world’s first Bitcoin ATM.
Bitcoin Reserve To Become Reality?
Vancouver’s Mayor’s ambition to make the city a pro-Bitcoin space might be cut short by existing laws. The existing rules don’t permit using BTC as a payment or reserve. However, with enough demand, the laws can be modified to accommodate crypto use.
Bitcoin’s use as a treasury reserve was popularized by Fortune 500 company MicroStrategy, which started accumulating BTC in 2020. MicroStrategy encouraged Tesla and SpaceX to add Bitcoin to their balance sheets, and now, after four years, more than 90 publicly traded companies hold BTC on their balance sheets.
Similarly, El Salvador adopted BTC as a legal tender and started buying one BTC a day last year, and it is already sitting on a $150 million profit. Apart from El Salvador, Bhutan, a small Asian nation, has accumulated over $1 billion in BTC.
Bitcoin was seen as a speculative asset with high price volatility, and traditional institutions refused to invest in it for nearly a decade. However, as BTC proves naysayers wrong with each bull cycle, institutions and lawmakers have started to take BTC seriously.
There is also a growing demand in the U.S. for the Trump administration to build a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Prashant Jha is a seasoned crypto journalist based in Delhi, India, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering. Passionate about the evolving world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, he has been a dedicated voice in the industry since 2018. Prashant’s expertise lies in regulatory reporting, where he unravels complex legal and financial developments with clarity and precision. Before joining CCN in 2024, he honed his craft at Cointelegraph, establishing himself as a trusted name in crypto journalism.
His coverage spans major industry events, including the high-profile collapses of FTX, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), and LUNA, offering readers insightful analyses of their regulatory and market implications. Prashant’s technical background enables him to bridge the gap between intricate blockchain technology and its real-world applications, making his work accessible to novices and experts.
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