Eric Adams, the pro-Bitcoin New York mayoral candidate, has won the Democratic Party primary.
He will therefore challenge Republican Curtis Sliwa.
In the Republican Party primary, Sliwa won with almost 41,000 votes and a percentage of more than 68%, but Adams won the Democratic Party primary with even more than 260,000 votes in the first round, and more than 400,000 in the second.
A total of 944,197 votes were cast in the Democratic primary, which is much more than in the 2013 primary, when the figure was 750,000.
According to many analysts, the winner of the Democratic primary would be far favoured in November against the Republican candidate, not least because there are more than six times as many registered voters in the Democratic Party as in the Republican Party. Moreover, the Democratic electorate in the city has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, so much so that Republican candidates are now considered minor politicians who are virtually certain to lose.
So, barring any surprises, Adams will be the next mayor of New York.
Moreover, Adams was the most voted Democratic candidate in every borough except midtown Manhattan, and the idea of siding with Bitcoin is likely to help attract these voters as well.
Eric Adams, the pro-Bitcoin candidate who won the primaries
A few days ago, in the midst of his campaign, Adams declared that he wanted to make New York a “Bitcoin hub”, probably referring to the idea of attracting crypto activity to the city.
In fact, New York is already home to one of America’s largest crypto exchanges, Gemini, but it is Miami that has been doing the best job of attracting crypto companies to the city lately.
However, Miami is not a major financial centre, whereas New York is the most important financial centre in the world.
For example, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, ICE, is also the owner of Bakkt, which offers bitcoin futures contracts on the New York Stock Exchange.
Furthermore, in April the most important US crypto exchange, Coinbase (based in San Francisco), listed on the Nasdaq, and the Nasdaq is a New York-based stock exchange.
So the idea of New York becoming the centre of the crypto markets seems not only plausible but absolutely realistic.
Now we will have to wait for the final verdict in November, and see what concrete measures Adams will take in favour of crypto operations.
