Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang: NYC should be a Bitcoin hub

Excitement over Bitcoin

Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey established a Bitcoin development fund, Tesla purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, and mayoral candidate Andrew Yang says he wants to make New York City a cryptocurrency hub.

NEW YORK - Andrew Yang wants to make New York City a "hub" for digital currencies such as Bitcoin if he is elected mayor.

"As mayor of NYC - the world's financial capital - I would invest in making the city a hub for BTC and other Cryptocurrencies," he tweeted on Thursday.

Yang, a Democrat who ran for president last year, joined the crowded race for mayor in January. His signature policy plan is universal basic income, which garnered him a small but vocal following during his presidential campaign.

In response to a request for more information on what Yang means by a hub for cryptocurrency and what he would do to make that happen, his campaign told FOX 5 NY that it plans to release its policy soon. Yang is still recovering COVID-19 and isn't doing interviews, the campaign said.

Yang calls for universal basic income in New York City

Andrew Yang, a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York. (Campaign photo courtesy of Yang For New York Inc.)

Yang, 46, moved to New York City in 1996 to attend Columbia Law School. He very briefly worked as a corporate lawyer before joining startups, founding a company, and later becoming the CEO of an education company, according to his campaign bio. He has never held elective office.

More than two dozen people have filed with the city's Campaign Finance Board to run in the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary. City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, and former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan are some of the better-known Democrats in the mix.