The mayor said that the City Council had learned more about cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology, as well as how to use them to improve city services.
In an effort to embrace virtual money, the New Hampshire city of Portsmouth will allow residents to pay their bills in Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. Deaglan McEachern, the city’s mayor, pitched the idea to city officials, who believe will provide residents with more payment options.
McEachern Joins the Trend
According to a March 23 note from local news outlet Seacoastonline, Mayor McEachern said that, “there are lots of new things that are going to affect us in terms of our future that use the type of technology used in cryptocurrencies.” He further stated that he wanted “to make sure that Portsmouth is not waiting to see how this is going to affect us in the future, because it already is.”
McEachern said that the City Council has learned much more about cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology, as well as how to use them to improve city services. He also mentioned that any payment in cryptocurrency would convert immediately into US dollars so that the change would not have any impact on the city’s monetary practices.
Meanwhile, Some Issues
Plymouth residents cannot yet make payments directly to the city using cryptocurrencies; instead, they will need to use PayPal, a provider the city has been using for several months, Revenue Manager Nancy Bates said.
“City customers who have cryptocurrency stored in their PayPal account can now make payments to the city using that cryptocurrency when they choose PayPal as their payment method,” Bates said in a memo to city manager Karen Conard. “This new payment method has no impact on the city’s financial practices, as PayPal converts the cryptocurrency into US currency before sending it to our payment processor.”
“City customers who have cryptocurrency stored in their PayPal account can now make payments to the city using that cryptocurrency when they choose PayPal as their payment method,” Bates said in a memo to city manager Karen Conard. “This new payment method has no impact on the city’s financial practices, as PayPal converts the cryptocurrency into US currency before sending it to our payment processor.”
How Crypto Adoption in Portsmouth will take Place
The Mayor added that as a small city, Portsmouth’s adoption of the asset will be agile and easily scalable. Furthermore, he revealed that he was fascinated with the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies and requested that his $500 election bonus be paid in cryptocurrencies.
He adds that, in the near future, the adoption of cryptocurrency payments will help the unbanked in the United States and will be “transformative for financial services.”
PayPal first announced that it would switch to crypto in 2020, making it one of the biggest adoption stories of that year. Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, noted that the introduction aimed at driving “understanding, redemption and interoperability of these new instruments of exchange.”
The evidence shows that the US Government interest in cryptocurrencies is on the rise. Miami and New York, for example, have been open to the adoption of cryptocurrencies. As Cointelegraph reported in mid-February, Colorado Governor Jared Polis said that the state government would allow residents to pay their taxes with crypto starting in the summer of 2022.
By Audy Castaneda
