Crypto Advisory Council Coming to New York City

NEW YORK — The city of New York is launching a digital assets advisory council to bring fintech jobs into the Big Apple, Mayor Eric Adams announced 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 want to use technology of tomorrow to better serve New Yorkers today,” Adams said in his opening remarks. “We have experts right here, and they are going to help us navigate solutions that serve our city. We are lucky to have this type of human capital right here in the city 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 first time in 15 years, we’re in this scenario, we have no idea what it’s going to look like,” Durgee said. “You have now all these people, these smart, brilliant people now coming back to the U.S., and they’re looking for a place to land.”