{"id":97949,"date":"2026-01-12T23:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T23:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/97949\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T23:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T23:18:11","slug":"eric-adams-launches-cryptic-new-crypto-venture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/97949\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Adams launches cryptic new crypto venture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Adams once converted his government paychecks into cryptocurrency. Running his failed campaign for reelection, Adams lined his campaign coffers with donations from crypto investors. He flew to the Somos conference<\/a> in Puerto Rico in the private jet of a crypto billionaire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now, the former mayor of New York City has transitioned from crypto evangelist to crypto salesman.<\/p>\n

Not two weeks after he left office, Adams returned from a short international trip (hitting Dubai and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to announce a new cryptocurrency venture. The \u201cNYC Token,\u201d as Adams\u2019 new ballcap<\/a> and a large banner in Times Square pronounced, is a new digital coin \u2013\u00a0a virtual asset that is worth as much as people\u2019s willingness to buy and sell it using blockchain.<\/p>\n

Adams\u2019 vision for the new digital token was presented as a dizzying amalgam of some of latent passions from his time at City Hall: fighting antisemitism, generating patriotic sentiment, teaching kids about the emerging financial technology, and, newly, for some reason, preaching Walmart as a case study in innovation.<\/p>\n

If any kids were tuning into Monday\u2019s press conference hoping to start their education on how crypto works, they would have left deeply confused.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne focus we have on this New York City coin is to use the revenue generated to address anti-American, antisemitism, to teach our children how to embrace blockchain technology, how to run cities correctly, as Walmart is using blockchains to deal with their food chain and transparency,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

Where that revenue will come from \u2013\u00a0like trading fees, equity in the coin or elsewhere \u2013\u00a0is unclear. As is Adams\u2019 statement that he would run a nonprofit associated with the token. Adams said that he isn\u2019t taking a salary \u201cat this time,\u201d but opened up the possibility of doing so \u201cdown the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

A website<\/a> for the new token doesn\u2019t shed much more light. Adams said that he and the couple other \u201ccreators\u201d of NYC Token are listed on that website, though they were not listed as of Monday afternoon. (Asked directly if crypto investor and supporter Brock Pierce is involved, he said no.) Links to buy the token and to a whitepaper explaining it are non-functional, though there are instructions for how to buy and swap the common Ethereum token for the new NYC Token.<\/p>\n

One thing that can be said of Adams: He\u2019s committed to the Bitcoin bit. \u201cRemember when I took my first three paychecks (in cryptocurrency), everybody said, \u2018What the heck is he doing?\u2019 They laughed at me, but I\u2019m laughing now because it was a good, smart investment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Adams once converted his government paychecks into cryptocurrency. Running his failed campaign for reelection, Adams lined his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10525,81,3066,9,24,55,54,2327,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-97949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-cryptocurrency","9":"tag-eric-adams","10":"tag-heard-around-town","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-news-politics","16":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}