The Business Insider has revealed that, according to a Berkeley city council member, the city is considering offering its own initial coin offering (ICO) in an effort to cut its dependency on federal funding.
The ICO, digital coins would be sold to the public with government municipal bonds backing them. It is common for governments to sell municipal bonds to raise money for new projects, some government officials in the city are hoping that including blockchain technology will appeal to residents who are already familiar with bitcoin investing. One difference between bonds and coins is that cryptocurrency could be used in the local economy.
Although the central administrative office for Berkeley has not commented on the matter, it is speculated that the ICO initiative is in response to recent tax cuts passed by the federal government. The hope is that the city will be able to use the ICO to raise funds to support more affordable housing.
Whether a viable cryptocurrency usable in real-world transactions is doable remains to be seen. Few US businesses accept payment by cryptocurrency and a number of platforms that used to accept bitcoin have decide to no longer do so because of high transaction fees and price volatility.
Brochure printing to educate the public about investing in cryptocurrency is something that the city and Neighborly, a start-up assisting with ICO might want to consider.
