Vitalik Shares His Views On The Establishment Of Crypto Cities

There's a lot that can and should be improved with cities, and a lot of opportunities; despite the challenges, crypto cities broadly are an idea whose time has come.

Written By:
Jahnu Jagtap

Last updated: September 12, 2025 1:57 PM

Published November 2, 2021 10:25 AM

Last updated: September 12, 2025 1:57 PM

Published November 2, 2021 10:25 AM

In Brief:

Vitalik described how city tokens can help local governments and their citizens.
Vitalik points out ongoing experimental projects such as Miami.coin, Reno and CityDao.
He believes CityCoins is a very promising project in the field.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain published a blog on his personal website Vitalik.eth in support of Establishment Of Crypto Cities. Vitalik described how city tokens can help local governments and their citizens in his post.

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1455043525809213443

Vitalik believes that cities can benefit by developing city tokens and forming decentralized autonomous organizations, known as DAOs.

He points out that the local level of government is a very undervalued one and criticism of existing smart city initiatives often heavily focuses on concerns around centralized governance, lack of transparency and data privacy. Blockchain and cryptographic technologies, on the other hand, appear to be a promising key ingredient for a more open and participatory future.

Vitalik also gave out examples of several cities that have implemented various cryptocurrency integrations, like

Miami Coin is a Bitcoin-based crypto currency that is meant to fund the development of Miami.
Reno is also experimenting with NFT projects and creating a Reno Dao.
CityDAO is a DAO with legal status under Wyoming’s DAO statute that is attempting to build totally new cities from the ground up.

Miami.coin was publicly endorsed by the mayor Francis Sanchez saying it would “ revolutionize the way governments are funded”. The Miami government is one of the first local authorities of the US to embrace cryptocurrencies.

He claimed that city tokens should satisfy at least three from the following objectives:

They should act as a sustainable sources of revenue for the government
Must Facilitate economic cooperation between residents and the city
Promote saving and wealth-building for all stakeholders
Encourage city-wide social initiatives
Reduce wealth inequality

His blog’s most promising endeavour is CityCoins. The system, which is based on the Stacks (STX) blockchain, directs 30% of BTC mining revenue to STX holders into a wallet dedicated to each city.