Mayor Ken Sim says his continued push to have 麻豆传媒映画become a bitcoin-friendly city is “a hill that I’m willing to die on” as he awaits a city staff report on whether the digital currency could one day be integrated into the City of Vancouver’s financial strategies and systems.
Since he successfully introduced his motion to council in December, Sim has been on a crusade of sorts in making people understand his motivation behind what for many is a complex and mystifying concept.
What is bitcoin? How does it work? Why are police talking about it?
He’s done media rounds, appeared on podcasts, has attended events with the crypto industry and was the keynote speaker at the Virgo Crypto Summit on April 4 at the Sheraton Wall Centre.
Sim’s speech happened to come the day before the April 5 council byelection.
The mayor’s party, ABC Vancouver, had a table set up in the lobby outside the ballroom of the event and the party’s two candidates — — got some microphone time.
“Is it the end of the world if these two incredible individuals don't get elected?” Sim said before introducing Stein and Kaisers as supporters of the crypto community.
“No, but I'll tell you what's at stake: We put the industry behind by at least a year-and-a-half, and as we know in this industry, things are moving at the speed of light.”
It was an odd comment coming from a mayor whose party had held seven of the 11 seats on council before the byelection. The year-and-a-half reference is the time left until the 2026 general civic election.
Accepting taxes, fees in bitcoin
The mayor, who is a chartered accountant and former investment banker, said that no matter what staff recommends in the report that he will ensure more work will be done on crypto.
“If they miss the mark, if they come up with recommendations that are factually incorrect or based on the wrong data, I will be personally filing an amendment to correct those discrepancies, and then we'll vote on that as well, and then it will pass,” he told the crowd.
As for Stein and Kaisers, they did not get elected.
They finished sixth and seventh among 13 candidates in a race won by , who believe Sim has been wasting time on pushing bitcoin when affordable housing, homelessness and childcare need attention.
The mayor’s motion from December directs staff to explore options to make 麻豆传媒映画a bitcoin-friendly city by undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the potential to integrate bitcoin into the City of Vancouver's financial strategies.
That would include, but not be limited to, accepting taxes and fees in bitcoin.
The mayor has also called for the potential conversion of a portion of the city’s financial reserves into bitcoin “to preserve purchasing power and guard against the volatility, debasement and inflationary pressures of traditional currencies.”
The mayor described bitcoin in his motion as a decentralized, digital currency "impervious to the ups and downs of centralized monetary systems."
He said it has been recognized by financial experts and analysts as a potential hedge against inflation and currency debasement and represents a viable store of value due to its capped supply and growing adoption in the global economy.
Other cities and countries have explored or adopted bitcoin, including Zug, Switzerland; Seoul, South Korea; and El Salvador.
'Greatest store of value ever in human history'
Throughout his speech, Sim countered what he said were myths and misinformation about bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry, while also understanding there are skeptics who question his motivation.
“We have a fiduciary duty to do what's right for the City of Vancouver, even if it comes at great expense — and we're actually willing to take shots,” he said.
“This is a hill that I'm willing to die on because it's the right thing to do. And from a purely selfish perspective, I want my boys to [continue to] live here.”
Two of his sons are interested in pursuing careers in “decentralized finance,” or DeFi, as the mayor called it. The mayor has shares in Coinbase Global Inc., a company that describes itself as a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring and storing cryptocurrency.
His 2024 financial disclosure also indicates he has shares in MGT Capital Investments, a U.S.-based bitcoin mining company, and BTCC.B, another bitcoin operation.
When he introduced his motion, Sim promised to donate $10,000 in bitcoin to the city.
The mayor’s office said in an emailed statement that Sim consulted with an independent lawyer to confirm there was no conflict of interest related to his motion. Based on the lawyer’s advice, the mayor was able to table, attend the meeting and vote on his motion, his office said.
The mayor’s argument for integrating bitcoin into the City of 麻豆传媒映画is both simple and complex, depending on a person’s level of understanding of how financial markets work.
The simple: “We just want to take control of our own financial house right now, and I hope it's bitcoin because [my office has] done a lot of work [studying it], and I think it's the greatest store of value ever in human history.”
The complex: “When I look at the City of Vancouver, we have $3.2 billion in fixed income assets that are getting between 88 basis points and about five per cent interest, which means they're losing $300-450 million a year in purchasing power. That's not a winning formula. …We cannot outrun 15 per cent debasement to currency.”
'Very clear regulatory practices around cryptocurrency'
Among the attendees of the Virgo Crypto Summit was Sarah Morton, who the mayor pointed out in the crowd during his speech. Morton has met with Sim, councillors and city staff to educate them about crypto.
Morton is the co-founder of MeetAmi Innovations, a company whose mandate is to help wealth advisors and financial professionals navigate the world of digital assets. The company’s co-founder is Hashim Mitha.
“When we heard the mayor was doing this, we offered some no-charge workshops to the city to really just explain the ecosystem of what's going on and help guide their learning journey as they research this industry,” she said.
Morton said she and Mitha recognized in 2019 that blockchain was going to fundamentally change technology — “not just from an automation point of view, but from the way it ledgers and that it is really going to have impacts on traditional finance.”
Blockchain is a system in which a record of transactions, especially those made in a cryptocurrency, is maintained across computers linked in a peer-to-peer network.
It cannot be manipulated by third parties or a central authority, and some describe it as an electronic record book.
“So of course, you can't learn about blockchain without learning about bitcoin,” she said. “And we've watched its journey, we've watched its evolution.”
'Ton of innovation in Vancouver'
Canada has been a leader, she said.
“We've had crypto ETFs approved for almost four years — we've been ahead of the world,” Morton said, referring to exchange-traded funds that serve as a basket of securities.
“We've got very clear regulatory practices around cryptocurrency and how they're held and how they're reported, and we have a ton of innovation in Vancouver.”
She pointed out that U.S. billionaire Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, recently said in his newsletter to investors that he believes that bitcoin will replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency — if the trajectory continues with currency debasements globally.
BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager.
Morton echoed Sim’s belief that it is “a fiduciary duty” to have staff explore what’s possible for the City of 麻豆传媒映画when it comes to integrating bitcoin. It’s a reasonable response, she said, to critics of the mayor for raising property taxes and the increasing cost of the city’s budget.
“The mayor, with a financial background, is taking a serious look at this particular asset with a proven track record to see if a portion allocated from the city's reserves could protect the spending power of the city,” she said.
How exactly it would work — and be communicated to councillors and taxpayers without the in-depth knowledge of people with financial backgrounds — will not be clear or better understood until city staff delivers its report to council.
There is no confirmed date on the release of the report, but the mayor’s motion requested it be returned to council before the end of the first quarter of 2025, which ended March 31.
'Alarming rise in cryptocurrency files'
Meanwhile, a narrative persists about the crypto industry that had the 麻豆传媒映画Police Department raise concerns back in 2018 in a report to the 麻豆传媒映画Police Board.
At the time, the VPD warned the federal government that digital currency such as bitcoin would be used by organized crime to launder money unless more checks and balances are implemented to set up accounts and monitor those who operate automated teller machines.
Police in Metro 麻豆传媒映画saw a 350 per cent increase from 2016 to 2017 in files related to digital currency. As of January 2018, police were investigating 70 files and said they could see more than 800 cases generated by the end of year, resulting in a 300 per cent increase over 2017.
“This alarming rise in cryptocurrency files is primarily due to the way bitcoin has been adopted by fraudsters as the instrument of choice to transfer funds,” said the VPD report.
The report pointed out different scams associated with digital currency, including people posing as Canada Revenue Agency employees who target mainly new immigrants and seniors.
They tell them they owe money and request the money be deposited in a bitcoin ATM to a defined address. Fact: the first bitcoin ATM in the world was set up in 2013 in a 麻豆传媒映画coffee shop.
“What is overlooked in these scams is that despite bitcoin being an unknown concept to many victims, fraudsters easily walk them through the deposit and transfer of the money,” said the report, noting the criminals are often based overseas.
A more recent police report to the police board March 6 said frauds involving cryptocurrencies and extortion accounted for $10.34 million in losses in 2024.
“A single $100 million cryptocurrency investigation spanning multiple jurisdictions is ongoing and the amount of losses attributable to 麻豆传媒映画remains subject to confirmation,” the report said.
Money laundering
Sim’s response to that narrative is that bitcoin has been the No. 1 performing asset on the planet for 11 of the last 14 years.
“If people think it's used for nefarious things — sure it is — but if that's the standard, then we shouldn't use cell phones, the internet, cars, computers, because those are all used for the same illegal activities,” he said in an interview from his office at city hall.
“The thing you get with bitcoin is it's actually an immutable record. You can actually track stuff.”
At the December council meeting where Sim introduced his motion, Green Party Coun. Pete Fry questioned why there was no mention of money laundering concerns in the mayor’s motion.
Fry and council had just heard from more than 20 supporters of the mayor’s motion.
“With no disrespect to all the crypto enthusiasts who came here today — and I recognize that it is an exciting time and place — but in the absence of any really specific acknowledgement of the very serious issues around money laundering and the history in this city, I don't think this is a step in the right direction,” he said.
'A gimmick for his personal brand'
Jim Stanford, an economist and director of the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver, wrote in advance of the April 5 byelection that was posted March 31 on The Tyee’s news site.
Stanford did not hold back on what he thought of Sim’s interest in bitcoin.
“The City of Vancouver’s endorsement would merely add fuel to the fire of this volatile, environmentally destructive and fundamentally useless financial fad,” he wrote.
Stanford outlined some of the negative history associated with bitcoin, including a crypto exchange heist and how so-called bitcoin mining requires enormous amounts of electricity to function.
“The crypto industry, without doubt, is the most economically useless source of new carbon pollution on the planet,” he said.
“The vast majority of crypto holders have no intention of buying stuff with it. They use crypto purely for speculation: hoping to buy low, sell high [or vice versa, if they are short sellers] and pocket the difference.”
'Worthless string of zeros and ones'
In an interview, Stanford said the idea that Sim is promoting prudence and caution is all based on the libertarian critique of conventional money and that it is debased by manipulative governments.
“It's almost a conspiracy theory that's been tied to the crypto movement from the beginning, and there's absolutely no legitimate argument that going into crypto is the prudent thing to do for fiduciary reasons,” he said.
“I think it's a gimmick for his personal brand that he's trying to create and perhaps a way to actually give a boost — a seal of approval — to an industry that he's invested in.”
He said people selling crypto try and “dress it up” in the language of technology and the future. When in reality, he said, it’s a new way of sucking people into buying an asset that is fundamentally worthless and will only have value as long as people can be convinced to buy it.
“That is a Ponzi scheme with a capital P,” Stanford said.
“There is no fundamental economic value to this asset. I've written a lot about speculation in real estate and stocks and even tulip bulbs. But this is ultimately a worthless string of zeros and ones, and the more people can understand that, the less they'll get sucked in by all the hype from people who have a vested interest in getting another sucker to sign on.”
It's also, at this point, a non-starter for the City of Vancouver, as far as the provincial government is concerned.
The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs said in an emailed statement that neither the Community Charter nor the 麻豆传媒映画Charter recognizes the use of cryptocurrency as a form of payment for municipal services or other transactions.
"The Province is not considering amending legislation for local governments to permit investment in cryptocurrency," the statement said.
"Legislation for local governments determines how money may be invested or reinvested by elected leaders. Local governments in British Columbia, including the City of Vancouver, cannot hold financial reserves or make any investments using cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin."
The ministry added that the intent of legislation is that local government funds are not exposed to undue risk "as these funds are provided by property taxpayers and developers with the expectation that the funds will be available to provide municipal services."
Political gamble
If it all worked out for Sim, the City of 麻豆传媒映画would be the only municipality in Canada to integrate bitcoin into financial strategies.
He emphasized during his keynote address and in an interview that his interest in bitcoin is focused on protecting the purchasing power of the City of 麻豆传媒映画for the long term and sees it as a way to avoid huge property tax increases and cutting services.
“It's a technology that has been around for over 16 years,” Sim said. “It is becoming mainstream. Nation states, ETFs, pension funds, family offices, investment advisors —they're all starting to add it to portfolios. I would love to see 麻豆传媒映画set up for the next 100 years. That's my opinion.”
Sim plans to seek re-election in 2026, but knows being the only mayor of a major city in Canada pushing bitcoin is a political gamble; the results of the April 5 byelection could be interpreted as how well that gamble paid off.
“Most politicians wouldn't even bring up the conversation for fear that it may hurt their election chances,” he said.
“For us, the primary question isn't, ‘How many votes are we going to get from this?’ The primary question is, ‘Does this help the City of Vancouver? Does this make the City of 麻豆传媒映画better?’”
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