Mining is the energy-intensive process which both creates new coins and updates the digital ledger of all transactions of existing tokens.
“We want to make sure that our city has an opportunity to compete,” he said.
And ultimately, what miners care about most is finding the cheapest source of power out there to drive up their profit margins.
Less than an hour from City Hall is the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, which helps to power Miami, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
Across the state of Florida, nuclear energy is the second-biggest power generator, after natural gas.
The mayor is also considering a mix of other incentives, like enterprise zones specifically for crypto mining.
The federal government calls nuclear energy “a zero-emission clean energy source,” and tech billionaire and climate change evangelist Bill Gates previously told CNBC that nuclear power will “absolutely” become politically acceptable again.
“Nuclear has actually been safer than any other source of generation,” Bill Gates told Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “You know, coal plants, coal particulate, natural gas pipelines blowing up.
And more often than not, the world’s cheapest energy sources are renewable.
Whether Chinese miners actually make the move to Florida remains to be seen, but there are signs of progress in Miami’s aspirations to become a mining hotspot.
To draw them, the mayor has been trying to make bitcoin mainstream by advocating for policies that would enable city employees to be paid and residents to pay their taxes in the cryptocurrency.
“I do recognize it as a threat.