The mayor of Cool Valley, a city in the U.S. state of Missouri, is raising funds in order to give up to $1,000 in bitcoin to all residents in his city.
However, Jayson Stewart says he does not want them to sell their bitcoin immediately, noting that when the price of the cryptocurrency is $500,000 per coin years later, people are “going to really regret” selling.
According to KSDK News, Stewart has begun to raise funds in order to give the town’s 1500 or so residents a crash course in cryptocurrency.
Holding bitcoin ‘could transform town’
Stewart thinks that holding digital currency could transform the town substantially in years to come.
“I have friends whose lives have been completely changed, like going from working a regular nine to five job to being worth over 80 million dollars in a matter of a few years,” the Mayor says. He adds that most of the capital to fund the project will be donated from several anonymous Bitcoin investors.
“I have some very supportive donors who have agreed to match any money that I raise up to several millions of dollars,” says Stewart.
When asked whether city funds would also be used, Mayor Stewart replied: “It’s possible. We’ll see how it goes.”
The mayor does not want residents to sell their bitcoin soon after receiving it, however. To prevent this from happening, he said: “We’re putting in place, like, a vesting schedule for bitcoin. The idea is that maybe you don’t touch it for five years before you really get full access to it.” Mayor Stewart clarified:
We’re working on ideas like that because that’s my number one concern. [If] Someone just sells their bitcoin to pay their car note, and then when bitcoin is sitting at like $500,000 all these years later, they’re going to really regret that.
KSDK News spoke with a dozen residents of Cool Valley about the mayor’s bitcoin idea. While some of them had never heard of bitcoin or cryptocurrency, they seem receptive to the plan.
Dutchman made millions investing in bitcoin
Some cities in the U.S. are trying to become bitcoin hubs, including Miami, Florida, and Jackson, Tennessee. The mayors of the two cities are trying to get their local governments to accept bitcoin for payments and potentially keep BTC on their balance sheets.
The news comes a few weeks after it emerged that a Dutchman made a fortune by investing everything he had on bitcoin.
Didi Haitutu, the head of a Dutch family that sold every single cent it had and bought into Bitcoin in 2017, is now living the high life, having taken advantage of a very risky investment and winning big.
At that point, the price of the digital currency was $900.
Despite nearly-continual fluctuations in its valuation, fueled by celebrities and business leaders who are either backers of Bitcoin or who think it is “a scam,” in the words of former US President Donald Trump, it currently tops a cool $47,000.
The money the family has made from Bitcoin investment has forced them to hide their wealth in four safes, located all around the world, for security.
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