CryptocurreNYC — Andrew Yang’s Mayoral Bid for New York May Include a New Digital Currency
The birth of ‘Borough Bucks’ as a stablecoin?
I had no idea just how big New York City’s economy is — to put it in context if it were a nation it would be the 11th biggest in the world, just behind Canada.
This mind-blowing insight into just how big the Big Apple is came in a very illuminating podcast conversation between Andrew Yang — entrepreneur and Mayoral candidate, and Scott Galloway— Marketing Professor at NYU Stern.
Scott is a big character, someone who speaks knowledgeably and candidly. I’m a fan of his work. He cannot hide his enthusiasm for the things he loves, nor his skepticism for those that rankle him. It’s clear that he’s behind Andrew Yang in his bid for Mayorship.
There were many threads to the discussion even though it lasted just half an hour. If you have the time I highly recommend that you check it out.
The post-COVID era
The comparison of the economic scale of New York brought home for me the challenge faced by the city in the aftermath of COVID-19 (should we allow ourselves to believe we’re in the aftermath of it). The pandemic has wrought havoc in many ways — most significantly in the human toll. The harm that’s been done to businesses as a result of the loss of at least $1.5 Billion in tourism alongside the challenges that all businesses face in a post-pandemic world is significant too.
New York has what Yang termed a ‘nation-scale economy’. It also currently has over 10,000 failing small businesses — a number that’s growing daily. Part of the challenge inherited by the incoming city Mayor will be to figure out how to help those businesses overcome the odds and to re-build themselves and by extension, the local economy from the ground up. This cannot be achieved via stimulus checks or other artificial means alone — not in the long term.
Yang’s solution instead is proposed to be localised currencies that help to ensure that money spent by citizens flows through local small businesses, building them up again from within to get them back on their feet.
