Mayor Ken Sim continues to make his rounds as an advocate for bitcoin and is scheduled to be a featured speaker at a two-day convention this weekend on the Vancouver Conference Centre.
The occasion organizer’s website says Sim will communicate Sunday in a 30-minute night slot titled “Bitcoin and the Metropolis of Vancouver.” The “hearth chat” will probably be hosted by Scott Dedels, the co-CEO of Block Rewards and host of The Block Reward Podcast.
The “studying bitcoin” convention is billed as an occasion for “the curious, for the sovereign, for the subsequent wave of bitcoiners.” Basic admission tickets are $150 every and might be bought with bitcoin.
“Studying bitcoin is the last word schooling convention designed to empower you – whether or not you are a person, household, or enterprise – with the information and expertise to navigate bitcoin with confidence!” the web site stated.
It won’t be the primary time Sim speaks to an viewers of individuals fascinated with bitcoin, as BIV reported in April after the mayor was the keynote speaker on the Virgo Crypto Summit on the Sheraton Wall Centre.
The mayor’s participation in such conferences and being a visitor on numerous podcasts stems from a movement he efficiently offered to metropolis council in December 2025.
His movement directed employees to discover choices to make Vancouver a bitcoin-friendly metropolis by endeavor a complete evaluation of the potential to combine bitcoin into the Metropolis of Vancouver’s monetary methods.
That would come with, however not be restricted to, accepting taxes and charges in bitcoin.
The mayor has additionally known as for the potential conversion of a portion of the town’s monetary reserves into bitcoin “to protect buying energy and guard towards the volatility, debasement and inflationary pressures of conventional currencies.”
The mayor described bitcoin in his movement as a decentralized, digital forex “impervious to the ups and downs of centralized financial methods.”
He stated it has been acknowledged by monetary specialists and analysts as a possible hedge towards inflation and forex debasement and represents a viable retailer of worth because of its capped provide and rising adoption within the world economic system.
‘Hill that I am keen to die on’
On the Virgo Crypto Summit, he introduced to the group that his push to discover bitcoin “is a hill that I am keen to die on as a result of it is the proper factor to do.” A employees report was anticipated to go earlier than metropolis council earlier than the tip of March, however by no means occurred.
As of this week, it was nonetheless unclear whether or not such a report will probably be launched, though the mayor’s workplace stated in an e-mail that “employees are persevering with to discover this work in step with council’s route, and there’s no confirmed date for the report back to return to council.”
On the Virgo Crypto Summit, the mayor stated that it doesn’t matter what employees recommends within the report that he’ll guarantee extra work will probably be performed on crypto.
“In the event that they miss the mark, in the event that they give you suggestions which are factually incorrect or primarily based on the flawed information, I will probably be personally submitting an modification to right these discrepancies, after which we’ll vote on that as properly, after which it would move,” he instructed the group.
That promise nor any point out of bitcoin was included this week within the e-mail from his workplace.
“My focus is on clear priorities and actual ends in the areas that matter most to Vancouverites: making our metropolis safer, constructing extra housing quicker, and making life extra reasonably priced,” he stated. “That’s how we’re constructing a stronger, higher Vancouver for everybody who calls this metropolis house.”
‘A matter of life and dying’
OneCity Coun. Lucy Maloney described the mayor’s continued curiosity in bitcoin as a misplaced precedence, significantly when many Vancouverites are struggling to make ends meet in what has change into an costly metropolis.
“The hill I die on is a safer, extra reasonably priced, extra livable metropolis for each considered one of our neighbours,” stated Maloney, noting the provincial authorities has already acknowledged it’s not fascinated with Sim’s bitcoin pursuit.
“We have got such severe issues which are a matter of life and dying for the residents of Vancouver. It might be good to see him placing this power into addressing the homelessness disaster, the poison drug epidemic, the those that die on our roads. There are larger points that I want he was placing his ardour into.”
Maloney was elected within the byelection that occurred the day after the mayor’s speech at Virgo Crypto Summit. Coun. Sean Orr of COPE was additionally elected, with candidates for the mayor’s ABC Vancouver occasion ending sixth and seventh.
Maloney stated individuals she spoke to at doorsteps throughout the marketing campaign have been suspicious of bitcoin and its potential use on the Metropolis of Vancouver.
“I believe I spoke to fewer than 5 individuals out of all of the individuals I spoke to throughout the byelection marketing campaign who thought that investing in bitcoin was a good suggestion,” stated Maloney, noting she knocked on a whole lot, if not hundreds of doorways.
El Salvador
Inexperienced Get together Coun. Pete Fry is equally involved about what he described because the mayor’s “private form of ardour challenge.” Fry stated Sim is spending an excessive amount of time on a enterprise that’s not legally permissible by way of the Vancouver Constitution or the province’s Neighborhood Constitution.
“For us to put money into bitcoin as a metropolis, it does appear extremely reckless,” stated Fry, noting Sim’s movement in December referenced El Salvador’s funding in bitcoin. “They’d invested closely in bitcoin for his or her nationwide forex, and since needed to get bailed out by the Worldwide Financial Fund due to such a colossal failure.”
Council’s focus, he stated, must be on offering reasonably priced housing for individuals and lifting residents out of poverty, significantly within the Downtown Eastside, the place individuals residing with a psychological sickness, an habit, or each, are struggling to outlive.
In a earlier interview, Sim stated that his curiosity in bitcoin is concentrated on defending the buying energy of the Metropolis of Vancouver for the long run and sees it as a approach to keep away from enormous property tax will increase and reducing providers.
“It is a know-how that has been round for over 16 years,” Sim stated. “It’s turning into mainstream. Nation states, ETFs, pension funds, household places of work, funding advisors—they’re all beginning to add it to portfolios. I might like to see Vancouver arrange for the subsequent 100 years. That is my opinion.”
This weekend’s convention additionally encompasses a section titled, “heating Kitsilano pool with bitcoin mining.”
Sim has proven curiosity within the subject, with him just lately posing in {a photograph} posted by way of the X social media platform with employees at Mintgreen, a Canadian cleantech firm specializing in warmth restoration from bitcoin mining.
X/@Howellings
