MiamiCoin is down ~95% from its peak value in Sept., after the city of Miami promoted it to residents and made millions of dollars from a deal with CityCoins
On Feb. 2, the city of Miami cashed out its cryptocurrency MiamiCoin for the first time, depositing $5.25 million into city coffers.
Context & Ripple Effects
MiamiCoin launched in August 2021 as a CityCoins partnership that automatically routed 30% of newly minted coins to Miami, generating $7.1M for the city within weeks. Mayor Francis Suarez leaned in hard, promoting the coin to residents and promising them a bitcoin yield from staking their MiamiCoin.
The unwind is now complete on the city's side: Miami cashed out $5.25 million on Feb. 2, while the token itself sits ~95% below its September peak. By March, Okcoin had suspended trading of both MiamiCoin and NYCCoin over low liquidity, and by May the city had largely moved on from crypto even as it hosted Bitcoin 2023.
First-order effects
- Miami residents who bought the coin on their mayor's promotion are sitting on ~95% losses, while the city has already banked its $5.25 million — the promised staking yield never materialized into a hedge against the collapse.
- CityCoins' model takes a direct hit: with Okcoin delisting MiamiCoin and NYCCoin for low liquidity, the protocol's two flagship city tokens have lost their main US trading venue.
Second-order effects
- Other cities weighing CityCoins-style deals now face the template's full arc — millions raised upfront, then a worthless token and an embarrassed endorsement — making mayors far less willing to put a municipal brand on a coin.
- Exchanges still listing city coins face the same liquidity-and-reputation calculus Okcoin cited, pressuring remaining venues toward suspension rather than waiting out the decline.
Third-order effects
- The structural lesson is asymmetric: municipalities can extract real dollars early because they hold the allocation, while retail buyers absorb the downside — a pattern that, if it holds, ends city-branded tokens as a municipal revenue instrument.
- Mayoral crypto evangelism shifts from civic marketing to political liability, as Suarez's trajectory from most-crypto-friendly US mayor to quietly de-emphasizing crypto illustrates.
The trend: City-branded cryptocurrencies are collapsing as a municipal fundraising model, leaving endorsed retail holders with the losses while governments keep the early gains.