As Miami prepares to host Bitcoin 2023 on May 18, the city and its mayor, who continues to take his salary in bitcoin, have mostly moved on from crypto
On the eve of the annual bitcoin conference, the city and its mayor have mostly moved on from crypto — A year ago, when the annual … Tweets: @silvermanjacob , @deborahacosta , and @mdudas Tweets: @silvermanjacob : Sounds like crypto in Miami is dead: empty offices, bankrupt companies, even industry participants calling it a pyramid scheme. Suarez is still getting paid in bitcoin and had his staff cold-call VCs asking them to set up businesses in Miami. https://www.wsj.com/... Deborah Acosta / @deborahacosta : During last year's bitcoin conference, MiamiCoin traded on a crypto exchange. The Heat played at FTX Arena, and Blockchain .com was moving its headquarters to an office in Wynwood. Today, as Miami prepares to host Bitcoin 2023, none of that is true anymore.https://www.wsj.com/ ... Mike Dudas / @mdudas : I know plenty of great folks building crypto businesses in Miami; this story is overblown. https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years ago Miami was the self-styled most crypto-friendly US city, a rebrand driven by Mayor Francis Suarez's bitcoin advocacy most crypto-friendly US city and capped by his promise that residents would earn a bitcoin yield from staking MiamiCoin. The annual conference anchored it all: Bitcoin 2021 was the first major in-person crypto gathering after the pandemic first major in-person crypto conference, and even last year's edition already read as confusing and disjointed.
On the eve of Bitcoin 2023 on May 18, the reporting finds the physical markers gone or hollowed out — empty offices, bankrupt companies, MiamiCoin no longer trading, FTX Arena renamed, Blockchain.com's HQ move not holding — while Miami Tech Week devoted more attention to AI than crypto. The mayor keeps taking his salary in bitcoin and still has staff cold-calling VCs, though commentator Mike Dudas argues the 'crypto is dead' framing is overblown.
First-order effects
- Suarez's signature crypto commitments are now liabilities of credibility rather than assets of branding: the salary-in-bitcoin gesture persists while MiamiCoin's promised resident yield and Blockchain.com's headquarters relocation have both lapsed.
- Bitcoin 2023 proceeds as scheduled on May 18, but it convenes against a local backdrop of vacant offices and bankruptcies that reporters Jacob Silverman and Deborah Acosta document directly.
Second-order effects
- The city's tech-recruitment pitch pivots under its feet: with crypto firms departing or failing, Suarez's VC outreach and the broader Miami brand now ride on the AI momentum that dominated Tech Week rather than on digital assets.
- Dudas's public pushback signals the story itself is contested terrain — boosters have an incentive to dispute the 'dead' narrative ahead of a conference week that depends on attendance and sponsor perception.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, municipally sponsored crypto branding — city tokens, salary experiments, arena naming rights — becomes a cautionary template showing how quickly place-based hype cycles unwind, widening the [[/concepts#crypto-legitimacy-gap|legitimacy gap]] between crypto's promotional apparatus and its durable local footprint.
- Conference cities like Miami may keep hosting the industry's flagship events while decoupling their own economic identity from it, making the gatherings traveling spectacles rather than expressions of host-city commitment.
The trend: City-level crypto promotion is cycling from boom-era branding to quiet retreat, even as the annual conference circuit keeps the same host cities on its calendar.