Crypto Advisory Council Coming to New York City

NEW YORK — The metropolis of New York is launching a digital property advisory council to deliver fintech jobs into the Big Apple, Mayor Eric Adams introduced Tuesday.

New York City is “open for business, he said at the start of a summit hosted at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion. The council will be composed of individuals from the industry, with a chair to be announced in the coming weeks.

“We need to use know-how of tomorrow to higher serve New Yorkers as we speak,” Adams said in his opening remarks. “We have specialists proper right here, and they’re going to assist us navigate options that serve our metropolis. We are fortunate to have this kind of human capital proper right here within the metropolis of New York.”

The summit, which included a public press conference followed by closed-door roundtables, had participants from both family offices and unicorn startups, said Richard Hecker of Traction and Scale, a logistics firm involved in the event.

Business interests aside, the city will explore putting birth and death records onto a blockchain to help New Yorkers’ next of kin easily access these types of documents, Adams said.

Andrew Durgee, the co-CEO of Republic, which backs other startups financially, noted that his firm remained in New York despite concerns about regulators and other issues, even as other firms left the country.

“Now the primary time in 15 years, we’re on this state of affairs, we don’t know what it is going to appear like,” Durgee said. “You have now all these individuals, these good, good individuals now coming again to the U.S., they usually’re in search of a spot to land.”