Miami Launches 'MiamiCoin' to Make Millions and Fund the Police | Hacker News Reader

Miami Launches 'MiamiCoin' to Make Millions and Fund the Police

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32 pointselsewhen30 comments

It’s funny that they said the quiet part out loud:

> As investors buy the coin, its value will ideally continue to go up, and that cash will be used to fund infrastructure projects or events in the city.

Like most new crypto projects, they plan to make money by manufacturing a token out of thin air and selling it to people in exchange for real, valuable money.

They will then use the real money to fund their infrastructure projects because their contractors are too smart to accept MIAMICOIN in exchange for goods and services.

I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t reading a satire article.

This is no different from Miami printing dollars no? How is this legal?

This is no different from Miami selling numbered prints of an artwork. How is it not legal?

An artwork? Well, maybe.

Which begs an interesting question: could a city selling of numbered prints of artwork ever be an "investment contract" under Howey[1]? I think perhaps yes.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co.

> This is no different from Miami printing dollars no? How is this legal?

Is there a prohibition on states printing money?

Literally Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution.

  No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

> make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts

Since the dollar is not pegged to a gold or silver standard, I'd say the ship of this section has already sailed.

These are limits on the states, not the federal government [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Tender_Cases

I suppose since we use paper bills, and debit cards, most states are violating the “make any Thing but gold and silver…” bit.

Pretty sure the only bits in that doc taken seriously are the lack of rules against meddling in elections, and leveraging 1A and 2A to rile the masses.

Paper bills are issued by the Federal Reserve Banks, not the states. Debit cards aren't "Tender in Payment of Debts" at all: creditors don't have to accept payment by debit card.

Creditors CAN accept them because states do not disallow it.

The point is taking the language in that document literally is a ridiculous exercise.

The men that wrote it had barely discovered electricity.

We romanticize the achievements of morons.

> Creditors CAN accept them because states do not disallow it.

The document says the states cannot force creditors to accept payment by card, and they don't.

I'm not trying to romanticize the constitution, and I agree that parts of it are pretty moronic. I don't really have an opinion about this section either way, but my point is that it is in force as it stands, literally.

Miami isn’t a State. ;)

It’s different because you can’t actually use MIAMICOIN to conduct transactions. If they suddenly decided that, I dunno, sales tax could be paid in MIAMICOIN, I have a feeling the federal government would quickly become interested.

It’s like buying a municipal bond with no interest payments and infinite expiration date.

One could argue that these have an advantage, since technically, there is no counter-party risk!

Miami Dade launches a coin. Nice! What can possibly go wrong? Because you know, Miami is known for tech entrepreneurship and honest politicians.

MiamiCoin is apparently based on CityCoins [1] and, according to their FAQ, the city of Miami has nothing to do with it:

> Has the city of Miami partnered with CityCoins? > The city of Miami has not partnered with CityCoins. CityCoins are grassroots initiatives. As communities grow around CityCoins, they can encourage their mayor to claim the reserved city treasury wallet and begin putting its funds to use. > 30% of the STX that miners forward in order to compete in the earning of MiamiCoin will go directly to the wallet reserved for the city. The city of Miami may decide at any time to claim the wallet’s funds.

[1] https://www.citycoins.co/miamicoin

this is why crypto is becoming more and more a joke

I'm sorry to be so dismissive, but...

This is the stupidest thing I've read this year, by a long shot.

You mean it is the stupidest thing you read about this year?

Hmm. How long until someone creates a “pump and dump” scheme here to get the Miami police dependent on this MiamiCoin, only to then totally destroy the police department as part of the “dump” side of that scheme?

I think a lot of people might wonder whether or not that would that really be such a bad thing?

Miami is gonna have a huge lawsuit on their hands from gross police misconduct. Video was just released Monday. This is what they are funding when they say, "Fund the police." Looks like there's about 15 people beating that surrendering and probably handcuffed guy up. They want to raise it to 17 on the next incident?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUfNzF3R9Uk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8JpDIYCahg

A lot of pro-police brutality folks on I'm guessing. Hope it never happens to your family.

I think it might be the unfounded accusations of this money going to pay for police misconduct. Considering the history of the city and corruption, I would say this is a fair assumption to make.

I mean, it was right there in the title: Miami Launches 'MiamiCoin' to Make Millions and Fund the Police. I wasn't saying they're doing this specifically for that case, but you know, they probably have a lot of ongoing and future litigation too.

Funding the police seems like it's turned into funding the military, and endless and ever-growing expenditure of what seems like a mayor's private political army.

Can you clarify

>I think it might be the unfounded accusations of this money going to pay for police misconduct

? It seems that you're saying that the money paying for police misconduct is unfounded but that contradicts your second sentence.

In reality money goes often goes into different buckets. This bucket may be used for it’s stated purpose while another bucket pays for misconduct.

People often care about what their investments and donations are actually used for. See charity scandals where donations pay for CEO bonuses.

Now cities are selling unregistered securities.

"...listed as $MIA..."

Potentially an apt acronym if it fails to perform

How in the world is this not a scam

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