Auroracoin<\/a> in Iceland was a famous example. Auroracoin was airdropped to Icelanders \u2014 most of whom sold their new AUR immediately, crashing the price. AUR still exists, and CoinMarketCap says it traded a total volume of $120 in the past 24 hours. [CoinMarketCap<\/i><\/a>] Scotcoin is run by two guys out of a pub, and they get a bit of nonsensical press coverage every few years.<\/p>\n Local cryptos fell out of fashion in the ICO era \u2014 the favoured business proposition became just penny stock fraud, but on the blockchain.<\/p>\n Now we\u2019re back, with CityCoins \u2014 free magical money for your city! [CityCoins<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, has been promoting cryptocurrency for a while now \u2014 he thinks this will attract tech investors to the city.<\/p>\n In February 2021, Suarez proposed paying city employees in Bitcoin \u2014 though this didn\u2019t work out legally. In June, Miami hosted the massive Bitcoin Miami conference. [Bloomberg<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>Vice<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n Suarez is the mayor who thought Elon Musk\u2019s Hyperloop would be just the thing for Miami \u2014 digging a tunnel under a city built on waterlogged limestone. We can assume he\u2019s not a technical guy. [The Verge<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>Miami New Times<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n On 2 June 2021, Suarez tweeted: \u201cCheck out this on the first CityCoin being of course MiamiCoin!!!!!!!!!\u201d [Twitter<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n MiamiCoin was promoted locally on banners, signs and truck billboards.<\/p>\n CityCoins is built on Stacks \u2014 formerly BlockStack \u2014 which is a smart contract platform built atop Bitcoin, run by Muneeb Ali. MiamiCoin is a token running on Stacks. [Stacks<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>CoinTelegraph<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n Patrick Stanley from CityCoins told CoinTelegraph in November 2021 that MiamiCoin had generated $22 million up to that time. Except, of course, that\u2019s not dollars \u2014 it\u2019s STX, the native token on Stacks. [CoinTelegraph<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n STX used to be registered with the SEC as a security. The company claims STX is now a “utility token,” and no longer files reports with the SEC \u2014 though STX is still traded like an ICO minor altcoin<\/em>. [Decrypt<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n You \u201cmine\u201d MiamiCoin by buying STX tokens and sending them to the CityCoins smart contract. You get MiamiCoins. Some go to you, and some go to the city. Suarez has a vague plan to cash in the STX to bitcoins and then dollars for the city. [CityCoins<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>CityCoins<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>CoinTelegraph<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n CityCoins tells users to hold and reinvest, and not to cash out. Now, you might think that\u2019s a huge red flag warning as a thing that Ponzi schemes always tell their customers to do.<\/p>\n How do you turn your STX magic beans into actual dollars? Well, you go to any number of extremely questionable minor altcoin<\/i> exchanges. You turn it into bitcoins or ether, or perhaps tethers. You then sell these on a real exchange. [CoinGecko<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n Eric Adams, the new mayor of New York, is famously a massive coiner \u2014 of the sort who has no idea how cryptocurrency works, and doesn\u2019t care, \u2018cos he\u2019s busy partying with Brock Pierce. [Vice<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>Politico<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n It\u2019s unlikely that Adams has someone to advise him against this bad idea \u2014 because his current ideas on cryptocurrency are just as bad, and he\u2019s already got the CityCoins guys in giving presentations to his staff.<\/p>\n One issue for NYCCoin \u2014 as they\u2019re already calling it \u2014 is that neither CityCoins nor Stacks has a New York Bitlicense, required for cryptocurrency companies to operate in the state.<\/p>\n Expect CityCoins to use New York as social proof of their idea being good, and other cities to follow suit \u2014 whether or not NYCCoin actually goes anywhere.<\/p>\n Jim Kenney, mayor of Philadelphia, has given the go-ahead for the city to look into a CityCoin.<\/p>\n The guy pushing the idea appears to be the city\u2019s chief information officer, Mark Wheeler. As I write this, Wheeler\u2019s Twitter display name is \u201cMark Wheeler markaroo.btc\u201d. [StateScoop<\/i><\/a>; Twitter, <\/i>archive<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n The formal vetting process for a PhiladelphiaCoin will involve considerable legal review. Philadelphia will also try to review the agreement between Miami and CityCoins.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MiamiCoin suffered a pump-and-dump after it achieved its only crypto exchange listing to date, on OKCoin \u2014 from a peak of $0.054 on 20 September 2021, to $0.006 on 11 February 2022.<\/p>\n The total supply of MiamiCoin is now worth about $6 million \u2014 assuming there was anyone who wanted to buy them so you could cash out. [Protos<\/i><\/a>; <\/i>CoinGecko<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n Suarez announced that Miami received a payout from CityCoins of $5.25 million. This wasn\u2019t from selling the MiamiCoins or STX. It was a \u201cdonation\u201d from CityCoins \u2014 a promotional expense, so that the scheme didn\u2019t look too<\/i> much like a disastrous failure. [NBC Miami<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n It\u2019s philosophically possible that Suarez will take the hint and get out of this crypto rubbish \u2014 but he\u2019d need a new personality first.<\/p>\n The exit scam for CityCoins? Well, obviously: Penistone.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\nMiamiCoin<\/h3>\n
New York<\/h3>\n
Philadelphia<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/miamicoin-price-chart.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSo much for MiamiCoin<\/h3>\n
How does this end?<\/h3>\n
![\"Become](\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/become_a_patron_button.svg\" "\\"Become")
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