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Miami Mayor Francis Suarez Announces Bitcoin Funds Are Coming To City Residents

MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Miami Mayor Francis Suarez made a major announcement to make Bitcoin more of a common currency in South Florida on Thursday.

The mayor says the city has generated $20 million for city residents through MiamiCoin, and the city is now going to pledge a percentage of that and get a yield in Bitcoin.

"The yield will be approximately somewhere in the vicinity of a million dollars or more and we are going to distribute that to Miami residents," said Suarez.

The city will work to figure out exactly how to identify and verify Miami residents and where to store their virtual money.

"We're going to have a digital wallet mechanism where we can drop the money into their digital wallet," said Suarez.

Miami has been at the forefront of the crypto-craze.

Over the summer, the world's largest cryptocurrency conference happened in Wynwood.

The mayor has been an advocate for crypto, even calling the Magic City the Bitcoin capital.

"Our residents don't have to do anything; they don't have to pay for anything there's no risk -they're just going to get money and I know it sounds weird because no one's ever done it," says Suarez.

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