Miami Mayor: Tesla’s $1.5 Billion Buy is Just The Beginning for Bitcoin

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said there could be more mega crypto events to come following Tesla’s mammoth Bitcoin purchase.

By Scott Chipolina

In brief

• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez suggested there are more big events to come in the crypto world following Tesla's massive Bitcoin purchase.
• He said Tesla's Bitcoin investment is just the beginning for wider Bitcoin adoption.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told Decrypt that Tesla’s $1.5 billion Bitcoin investment is just part of the crypto world’s transition into mainstream culture. According to Mayor Suarez, there will be more groundbreaking events to follow that could transform the cryptocurrency industry forever. 

“This is really just a metamorphosis and transition into mainstreaming, and I think there are still two or three mega events that are out there,” Mayor Suarez told Decrypt. 

Specifically, Mayor Suarez pointed to the impact a major US government stimulus package could have on cryptocurrencies.

“There are estimates that that could create 40% of all the dollars that are in existence,” the Mayor said, adding, “That has the possibility of creating inflation, which again will be something that drives people into crypto.” 

That’s not the only thing the Mayor foresees in crypto’s potential future. He said that, if Amazon started accepting crypto as a payment method, it would completely transform the landscape. “If that happens, it’s game over. You’re talking about a company that is probably associated with 70% of the transactions that we do in our lifetime,” he said. 

And all of this is good news for the Mayor who not only hopes to turn Miami into a cryptocurrency world leader, but plans to personally buy cryptocurrency soon. “It’s exciting for me to see day in and day out more and more people—mainstream people—that are taking big positions,” he said. 

Elon Musk, who as Tesla CEO oversaw the company’s massive Bitcoin investment, has also been impacting the cryptocurrency industry by frequently tweeting about Bitcoin—and Dogecoin. 

In a recent study by the Blockchain Research Lab, Musk’s tweets were shown to have caused 20% spikes in Bitcoin and Dogecoin markets, prompting questions about whether it is right that private individuals can impact crypto markets so significantly. According to Mayor Suarez, this isn’t anything new. 

“The market changes up and down every day. Something that somebody says, the President of the United States or the FED Chairman can change values, it’s based on perception,” he said.

But as far as Bitcoin is concerned, Mayor Suarez suggested that as more people come to own Bitcoin, any one person’s ability to move the market will decline. In other words, as transactional volume increases in the Bitcoin network, individuals will have less impact on the market. Then maybe Musk will be able to change his Twitter bio in peace.