Vancouver city officials have recommended councilors reject Mayor Ken Sim’s bitcoin proposal, which has commissioned work on accepting payments in BTC and exploring Bitcoin reserves for a portion of the city’s funds.
Bitcoin: “A Permissible Investment Asset”
In a report released March 2 on the council’s top priorities review, Vancouver staff consider bitcoin a “permissible investment for the city” and suggest that Mayor Sim’s proposal to make Vancouver a “bitcoin-friendly city” should be implemented. The report also asks the council to prioritize some of the 78 proposals it has received since 2019 as part of a wider clean-up of iconic destinations.
The basis of this, as stated in the report, is the “re-prioritization of personnel and resources” and the need to “align and coordinate work with relevant initiative(s): the goal is to reduce the costs of the city by optimizing internal capacity.”
City officials back those findings with the Vancouver Charter, a provincial law that defines how municipal funds can be invested.
Inside the Vancouver Charter
BC’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs explained that the Community Charter and Vancouver Charter “do not recognize cryptocurrency as payment for municipal services or other transactions,” so cities should not treat BTC as regular currency on their balance sheets.
The ministry also stated that local governments “are not allowed to hold financial resources in cryptocurrencies” because crypto is not included in the list of permitted investment instruments in the provincial legislation.
According to Section 183 of the Community Charter, which refers to the funds of local governments, eligible investments are specified as securities of the Municipal Finance Authority, pooled funds, federal or provincial bonds, guaranteed bank products and similar instruments of the highest grade. There is no legal category that covers Bitcoin or other volatile digital assets, which does not mean that it is prohibited: it simply does not exist in law.
Bitcoin Dream: A Bitcoin Friendly City
Mayor Sim’s bitcoin movement was implemented in December 2024. Sim, who is an investor in a cryptocurrency exchange, said he believes investing in Bitcoin is a “financially responsible” thing to do amid inflation and market volatility. He went so far as to pledge a personal donation of $10,000 in bitcoins to build a municipal reserve, hailing BTC as one of the most important financial innovations of the time.
The City of Vancouver would be irresponsible not to look at the benefits of adding bitcoin to the city’s strategic assets to maintain the city’s financial stability.
What’s next?
Staff were due to report to the board in the first quarter of 2025, but no one else has been revealed as of the quoted report.
City of Vancouver staff’s recommendation will be before council on March 10. Mayor Sim will have to decide whether to burn political capital in defense of his BTC agenda or see his bitcoin ambitions rejected and rejected by his own administration.
BTC's price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview
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