Put your favorite city on the path to the future with CityCoins!

First of all what is CityCoins? I'm sure you've probably heard of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, DogeCoin, Ethereum and many other such projects. Well CityCoins is a new concept that allows public officials to merge a physical geographical location with a blockchain network producing amazing results! This allows the citizens of a city to become its stakeholders in a way that quite literally has never existed before in the history of the world! Let me break it down for you.

A citycoin is an official crypto-token on the Stacks blockchain that allows the Mayor to raise funds for the operations of the city. This allows investors and citizens to build capital that can be used to significantly augment and even potentially replace the city's budget down the road as the value of the token increases.

Its just like owning shares in your favorite company but unlike stocks, which are subject to a lot of factors outside your control, the Citycoins token is built on the Stacks Network which is in turn secured and validated by the Bitcoin blockchain, the oldest and most-valued cryptocurrency (at least by market capitalization).

Now allow me to walk you through some of the reasons why the CityCoins project is much more than just an investment opportunity.

Long-term investment opportunity

First of all it IS an investment opportunity! As long as you are holding CityCoin you get paid in STX and Bitcoin as a reward for showing your support to the city. Whether you choose to mine it or purchase it, you are sending 30% of the mining yield straight into the city's wallet, which can be used in many different ways. But linking a town or a city to blockchain technology is much more than being about fundraising, its about the potential that blockchain technology has to revolutionize the operations of public administration and push capitalism into the future.

Accounting and Transparency

If you've ever worked in any type of office, you know the sheer amount of paperwork involved and how that paperwork can consume more time and effort than the actual work of the office itself. Not to mention the susceptibility of paperwork to human error and manipulation.

Now imagine a world where bureaucracy is greatly minimized or eradicated completely. Since Distributed ledger technology records and encrypts every detail of every transaction on the blockchain in, smart contracts can be used to speed up and secure a lot of office processes and spending.

This would translate to enormous savings in time, energy and capital expenditure. This would also boost transparency and trust in public officials since auditors could easily access and verify accounting in near real-time.

Governance and voting

Another major disruption that Citycoins and blockchain tech could usher in is an iron-clad and impenetrable way of conducting elections. Many cryptosystems, especially those involved in finance already implement something called a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) in which token-holders of that community have governance or voting rights attached to their tokens allowing them to be directly involved in the implementation of decisions and policies.

It is now within the realm of possibility that within the near future we could realize a truly free and fair election system devoid of corruption by building and executing smart contracts on a blockchain network. There is usually a significant percentage of the population that refuses to vote because of the negative aspects of politics; this kind of advancement could really increase the civic engagement of such people and truly change the face of democracy. This wouldn't only apply to the election of public officials but to the implementation of major and important legislation and policies. This will probably take a significant amount of time and effort but it can definitely be done.

Investment and Finance

Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) have already left an indelible mark in the world of trading and finance. According to the tracking service Defi Pulse, the value of digital assets invested in DeFi grew from less than $1 billion in 2019 to over $80 billion in May 2021. This represents the usual suspects of finance including but not limited to credit, loans, derivatives, insurance, and asset management.

And all these are operated in a decentralized, permission-less, trust-minimized, and secure environment, made possible because of blockchain technology. Citycoins can be used as an investment vehicle to get the city involved in trading, lending and growing the value of the token in general. Programmers can be hired to build decentralized exchanges that trade Coins with other cities and business entities. Not only does the holder of CityCoins get paid in STX and Bitcoin but the value of the token they hold increases over time. And as mentioned earlier, DAOs are already being used in Defi to shift more of the governance rights to the average investor.

CityCoins presents the opportunity for this model to be applied in the context of the municipality where direct market power is shifted to the citizens and capital is allocated programmatically and automatically through the use of smart contracts implemented on the city's blockchain. Unlike traditional finance which usually allows only a few venture capitalists with deep pockets a chance at early investing, CityCoins opens the doors for everyone to own a piece of the pie, so to speak, with voting and governance rights. The possibilities are endless.

I hope that by now I have been able to give you a glimpse of what the world could look like when you plug your city into blockchain technology! But there are so much more benefits and potential use cases for cityCoins: It can be used down the road to give tax breaks to those who have invested in it. Funds raised through this method could be channeled to small businesses and industries that directly promote the growth of the city such as tourism and hospitality. Programmers can be hired to create smart contracts that automate critical city processes and supply chains to make them more efficient and transparent. And did I mention that Citycoins is environmentally-friendly since it operates on the Stacks network?

Miami was the first city to adopt CityCoins in May 2021 and the announcement was made at the pre-launch at BTC2021 Miami with Mayor Suarez endorsing the concept via Twitter; you can read that hear: https://twitter.com/FrancisSuarez/status/1400151530456616972

You can also watch Patrick Stanley, founder of freehold give a brief presentation about the launch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3maLdyQa25g

The CityCoins concept is more than just a phase transition facilitated by WEB 3.0 and blockchain Technology. It represents a truly meritocratic and democratic evolution of your city. It is an evolution of the municipality from a one-dimensional geographical entity into a future-facing city with new features that will shape the lives of its citizens for years to come.