WBD436 Audio Transcription

Miami: The Bitcoin City with Mayor Francis Suarez

Interview date: Monday 13th December

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Mayor Francis Suarez. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk with Mayor Francis Suarez about leading the City of Miami. We discuss the political system, the role of a Mayor, and running a successful city. Further we talk about how Bitcoin re-energises capitalist systems, the benefits of Bitcoin mining, and MiamiCoin.

“Often times those people who portend to care the most about the impoverished in our community are the ones in many ways that are the most hostile to Bitcoin, which is wrong; it’s absolutely wrong.”

— Mayor Francis Suarez

What Bitcoin Did · Miami: The Bitcoin City with Mayor Francis Suarez

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Mayor Francis, hi.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Hey, how's it going.

Peter McCormack: Good, man. Welcome, thank you for coming on the show.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Thanks for having me, welcome to Miami.

Peter McCormack: Hey, love it here. This is my third time.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Pretty special weather.

Peter McCormack: I mean, coming from where I came from in England, yeah. It was freezing.

Mayor Francis Suarez: I was there recently and it was brutal.

Peter McCormack: Well, Scotland, you said you were in Scotland.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, that's a little higher, yeah, little more north.

Peter McCormack: Well, listen, this is overdue.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yes, it is.

Peter McCormack: You've done your practice run with the number two Bitcoin show, Mr Pompliano's. Good to get you on the top show!

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, at least he's in Miami, so I've got to give him some love, he's my guy.

Peter McCormack: No, he's a good guy, and we're going to see him this week, aren't we?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Awesome.

Peter McCormack: So, listen, loads to talk to you about.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yes, there is.

Peter McCormack: We are a Bitcoin-only show, so when you talk about crypto, we're going to pull weird faces at you.

Mayor Francis Suarez: It's okay, I'll try not to talk about crypto then. There's a lot to talk about with Bitcoin, so there's really no need to.

Peter McCormack: And football. You've got our guy, David Beckham, here.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Isn't that great?

Peter McCormack: Is he your buddy?

Mayor Francis Suarez: He is a buddy. He's a great guy, a super humble guy, and just a really decent guy. He's actually really fought hard to keep his team in Miami, and they started at their practice facility at Fort Lauderdale, and now we're in hopefully the final stages of doing a deal with them in Miami. So, it's going to be really cool.

Peter McCormack: We want to get him on the show.

Mayor Francis Suarez: You should.

Peter McCormack: He's a hero of mine.

Mayor Francis Suarez: He's a hero of mine too. He's a hero of a lot of people.

Peter McCormack: Do you have a Premier League team?

Mayor Francis Suarez: You know, his team was Manchester, so I do like to follow Manchester, and I did follow England sort of in the World Cup as well when he was cheering for them and stuff, so it was a lot of fun.

Peter McCormack: Well, Danny's from Manchester.

Mayor Francis Suarez: He was telling me before the show. Good stuff, brother.

Peter McCormack: I'm a Liverpool fan.

Mayor Francis Suarez: He was telling me one of the MLS guys at Inter Miami was a Manchester player before, the one that you interviewed, I think.

Peter McCormack: Kieran Gibbs? No, he was Arsenal.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Oh, he was Arsenal? My bad.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, and I've just bought a football team.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Nice, which one?

Peter McCormack: Bedford FC.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Bedford, nice!

Peter McCormack: A tiny, shitty team.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Is that the one that's in the show?

Peter McCormack: It will be, man. Wait and see, honestly, it's going to be the Bitcoin team.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Awesome, I love it.

Peter McCormack: So, I've got a feeling I'm sat here talking to a future president.

Mayor Francis Suarez: What's interesting is so few people have hit me so directly with it like that! But I will say this, and I have said this: (a) I think the country is ready for a new generation; (b) I think that person is going to be someone that's conversant with Bitcoin and understands Bitcoin and understands the power of Bitcoin. So, whether it's me or someone else, I think it's going to have to be someone that fits that criteria.

Listen, on 3 January, I'm going to be the President of a US Conference of Mayors, so I'm going to be President of all the mayors in the country, and 85% of the population of America is in cities in this country, 91% of the GDP. So, understanding how our cities work and function, and getting them to work in a way that's conducive to productivity, to the future, is something that could lead to other opportunities in the future, so we'll see.

Peter McCormack: Yeah. I mean, I'm going to be pretty direct.

Mayor Francis Suarez: I mean, that's your reputation; I wouldn't expect anything less!

Peter McCormack: So, out of interest with that, if you did, just one day, supposedly, you thought, "Maybe I'll become President, I'll have a go", is there a certain number of steps you go. Do you have to go work in Congress; do you have to go and be a senator first; or, can you just go straight for it?

Mayor Francis Suarez: That's interesting. I think the conventional wisdom, if you will, if you look back in history, usually presidents come from a couple of different places. One is, they're governors; or, they're senators, by and large. That doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who runs for president has to fall into one of those categories. You had Pete Buttigieg famously, who was the Mayor of South Bend at the time, did very, very well. He's now the Secretary of Transportation. So, I think Mayor Buttigieg and some other mayors have run, a lot of mayors have run in the past. No one's sort of broken that mayoral ceiling, if you will, to run for President as mayor, not that I'm aware of.

But I think that we live in such a different world, such a disruptive world, and I think with social media, with 24-hour news cable, or constantly mayors have gotten a bigger platform, a national platform, with podcasts like this that are being viewed by millions and millions of people, and I think Bitcoin generally speaking is held by a lot more people than people think; and I think that's one of the things that has been very, very evident to me in my tweets and in my social media, is that there's this runway. There's this, I call it "a portal of positivity", where there's millions and millions of people in this country that are very, very conversant in Bitcoin, and I think that's something that America's starting to discover. It's kind of like a silent majority.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's a very American idea, Bitcoin.

Mayor Francis Suarez: It is a very American idea, and this country and the world has sort of gotten away from some of the ideas that made it successful. What's interesting about Bitcoin is several things. Obviously, one, the fact that it was anonymously created, I think that's unusual, that no one said, "Hey, this is my creation. I want to take author's responsibility". There's probably a lot of good reasons why the person did that, or the group of people did that.

I think the second thing is, it is creating a solution where human beings have failed, and I think that, for me, is an exciting and interesting reality, which is that there are things in this society that can be disrupted radically by people who have redesigned the process and thought through the process in advance, which is what computer programming is, right, "We're going to set a set of protocols".

They've made it transparent and open source, so that people can see it, people can play with it, people can improve it, if necessary, which is why I think Bitcoin has not succumbed to the Napster, or the MySpace, in terms of being the first of its kind, but then other things come and supplant it. The fact that it's open source and there's a vast community of people that are able to reprogramme it if necessary, or adjust it, or make adjustments, if necessary, which really hasn't happened all that much, but it's there. And I think that allows for flexibility, improvement, variability.

But the fact that a community of people have said, "Hey, we see this broken system, the fiat system, it's broken. And it's broken because fundamentally human beings manipulate the system". I mean, either governments overspend, or central banks try to manipulate the ebbs and flows of the economy, and that concept has taken hold. So, what's interesting is I see a bit of a generational divide, I don't know if you see it --

Peter McCormack: I definitely see it.

Mayor Francis Suarez: -- in terms of, my dad, who came to this country as an immigrant, came to this country at 12, really smart guy, a brilliant guy I would say, a genius probably, written eight books, summa cum laude mechanical engineering, two graduate degrees from Harvard. He is 72 years old.

Peter McCormack: A mayor himself?

Mayor Francis Suarez: He was a mayor. He was a mayor from 1985 to 1993. He has started to understand it, but he had to really wrestle with it. It wasn't intuitive. If you think about someone who was born in 1949, which he was, going from the gold standard to a central backed based currency, where it's backed by the "full faith and credit of the Government of the United States", in this case, in the case of the dollar; and then, you're going to this other thing that in his mind is very abstract. You often hear from critics, "Where's the value; what is the value?"

Peter McCormack: "What is it backed by?"

Mayor Francis Suarez: "What is it backed by?" and people don't realise it's backed by the most important thing. It's backed by the confidence of the people who use it. And the fundamental value is indisputable. You have perfect liquidity, you can get in and out of the position at any time, and you can't argue that it's anything less than what it is, which in this particular case in the marketplace, and I don't know what today's value is, I haven't looked at it today?

Peter McCormack: $57,000, $58,000?

Mayor Francis Suarez: $57,000, right. So, it's $57,000 times more valuable than the dollar, right! So, that's the marketplace's valuation. It has value at 57,000% more than the US dollar, and policymakers in this country have to understand that. And I think people have to understand that the market is making decisions, and those decisions have consequences, and there is something here that is extremely unique and it's revolutionary, and there are obviously so many more things that we can talk about there.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well look, great intro, great start, lots of places I can go with this. But I find it quite interesting that you homed in on a broken system. I think one of the things to help me would be to understand, what is the role of a mayor? I understand the role of a senator, but I don't understand the role of a mayor. Where's your role, and how do you work with the other components of government?

Mayor Francis Suarez: So, my view of it is there are two functions for any public official, not just a mayor. I think function number one is -- and when you're a mayor, you're an executive, right, as opposed to a congressman or a senator, who is a legislator. Mayors, governors and presidents are executives; congressmen, state representatives, councilmen, they're all legislators.

So, I think as an executive, your number one role is to run your organisation well, like a CEO's number one role is to run their corporation well. So for us, the fact that we have the second lowest tax rate since the 1960s the year before last; we had the lowest homicide rate since 1954; that we have the highest bond rating the city's ever had, which is the second highest bond rating that is available to cities; we have the lowest homeless rate since 2013, we're going to hopefully eradicate homelessness in our city; those are things that go to how the mayor, how an executive runs their company.

But I think there's a second thing that every executive needs to have, which is they need to be a leader. Not everyone does it, and there has to be a secondary component which is, how are you a role model, or how are you creating a vision for what the future needs to look like; and how are you positioning this organisation and the people that you represent, and that you really serve, to adapt themselves and be prepared for that future?

So, I think one of the things that makes me somewhat unique in this country, is that I feel like I'm young enough to understand these new technologies, and I'm old enough to do something about it. So, there's an inflexion point, right, this sort of critical juncture, where it's hard if you're a little too old, you may not completely get it, you may not totally understand. And if you're too young, you may not have the responsibility to do something about it.

So, it's an interesting moment. And cities, we police the streets, we keep people safe, in theory; we decide how many times to clean your garbage and pick up your garbage; when you call 911 and you're having a medical emergency, we're the ones that respond and get you to the hospital safely. It's an enormous responsibility. And in the COVID world, mayors had a lot of responsibility, a ton of responsibility, so I think that's another thing that elevated mayors for better or for worse in the national spotlight, and I was very blessed.

It was interesting, I was the second person in Dade County to get COVID, to actually test positive. I was the first elected official in the country.

Peter McCormack: Really?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: Damn.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah. It was, I believe, was it 12 March 2020? Right before the NBA season, I think, got cancelled. And I think I did, in a few months, 300 interviews, national interviews, on all three major national channels. So, I think in a weird way, the world got to know me through getting COVID.

Peter McCormack: Well, I mean I got to know you through getting Bitcoin, talking about Bitcoin.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, we're getting there.

Peter McCormack: Yeah. I saw you on my boy, Pomp's, show. Okay, so in terms of running the city, do you also have a separate budget?

Mayor Francis Suarez: We have a budget, we have a $1 billion budget, it's actually $1.2 billion. And in terms of Bitcoin, I think the Bitcoin initiatives really fall in bucket number two, not as much in bucket number one, although there is some bucket number one part of it. But the bucket number two part of it is preparing our citizens and leading into the future by creating this vision. What should our residents expect? What does the brand of Miami mean? How does the brand of Miami…

I mean, we're here with XBTO sort of in the background; obviously Gemini being a sponsor of the show, they're our friends, and I probably wouldn't be friends with Tyler and Cameron if it wasn't for the fact that I became sort of the Bitcoin Mayor of America, that I decided to take a leap of faith, because I had studied the underpinnings of the technology, and I realised the transformational nature of it and the ability to really democratise investments in the world, and I went all-in, and people thought I was nuts.

Peter McCormack: What was your orange-pilling moment, how did it come about?

Mayor Francis Suarez: I started years ago. I was on the Florida Blockchain Foundation, and I was named by the CFO of Florida on the Florida Blockchain Taskforce. So, in terms of blockchain technologies and Bitcoin technologies, I was someone who had been following it years ago. And then, I don't know if you've heard of the "How can I help?" tweet of 4 December last year?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, we were talking about it earlier.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, where Delian Asparouhov, from Founders Fund, put out a tweet saying, "Hey, what if we bring Silicon Valley to Miami?" and I replied very innocently, "How can I help?" That tweet went completely viral, and I realised that there was a counternarrative in America, which is that cities in America, by and large, were pushing innovators out. They were blaming innovators for everything that went wrong in their city, whether it was homeless or crime, or gentrification, etc. And I just thought that was wrong, that it was anti-American.

From my perspective, I want people who are innovators, I want people who are doers, I want people who are creators. My country of origin, where my parents were born, was Cuba, which is obviously communist, and I saw very intimately the dangers of a leader, in their leadership capacity saying, "Hey, I know how to fix all the problems of this community. Just give me all your property, give me all your businesses and I will distribute them equally. Don't worry about it, everybody will be equal, everybody will be equally happy".

Peter McCormack: But don't dissent.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Oh, "Don't dissent, or have religion. And by the way, that equal thing, yeah, you're equal, but you're equally miserable. You're not equally happy, you're equally miserable", and that's the only equality that those governments have been able to deliver throughout the history of humanity. I call it the biggest fraud perpetuated on humanity. The biggest atrocity, of course, was the Holocaust, but the biggest fraud perpetuated on humanity is communism.

So, we're shaped by that here in Miami, and so we are entrepreneurial, we're innovative, and we had this counternarrative opportunity, and then I just drove a bus through it. I mean, 800 tweets in the month of December, I got 27 million impressions, and I realised that every time I talked about Bitcoin, my analytics would go off the charts, just crazy. And then I started meeting people in the community, and we started having fun with it, challenging each other and doing some exciting things.

One of the things that we did was, and I think it was Pomp that put it out there, he said something like, "I wonder who will be the first government to put the Satoshi whitepaper on the website?"

Peter McCormack: You did it.

Mayor Francis Suarez: That's right, and so we did that.

Peter McCormack: You didn't get sued?

Mayor Francis Suarez: We did not get sued.

Peter McCormack: Craig Wright didn't come after you?

Mayor Francis Suarez: No, so far, so good. Please don't jinx me.

Peter McCormack: You know he's in court here today in Miami?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Oh, is he really?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's meant to be verdict day.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Oh, God! No, so far, so good. Not looking forward to that day. So, we did that and then I said, "You know what, let's up the ante a little bit, let's have some real fun with this". So, I put a resolution on my commission to allow my employees to get paid in Bitcoin, to allow my residents to pay for fees and taxes in Bitcoin, and then to explore the possibility of holding Bitcoin as an asset on our balance sheet.

So, I got that through my commission, which was a bit of a surprise, because my commissioners, who frankly have been very good and they have been very trusting with me, they've been like, "Okay, you go do this. We'll sort of back you up", and most of them did. I think that was a four-to-one vote. And when I put out the video to say, "Hey, this is what we've done", it went bonkers. And it just highlighted to me that this is not just a small community of people that are loud and evangelistic. This is a very deep-rooted tens, if not hundreds of millions of people that are involved.

I've talked to a lot of the exchanges, obviously the Winklevoss Twins, who've become friends, Brian Armstrong, who's become a friend, and they've confided in me the number of accounts. I mean, this is big, big stuff. And I think part of the reason why people talk about me running for President or me being President, is people like you know how deep this is, and the impact of it and what it can do socially for Central America, South America, Africa, which I think are the countries right now that are ripe for massive Bitcoin adoption.

I believe, and this is only the second time I say this, so the first time I said it was not a forum as large as this, which is, I believe that Bitcoin has the ability to peacefully eradicate communism on the planet.

Peter McCormack: Well, I interviewed Nic Carter yesterday. I don't know if you know Nic, but he's here as well, and he wrote an article about Bitcoin called, A Most Peaceful Revolution, and I think why people probably latch onto somebody like yourself, we've seen so much irresponsible fiscal policy and monetary policy.

Mayor Francis Suarez: It's crazy.

Peter McCormack: Globally, the levels of debt are unsustainable.

Mayor Francis Suarez: No doubt.

Peter McCormack: And then, we see politicians, such as Elizabeth Warren, going very anti-Bitcoin, not understanding.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Totally has it backwards.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, Hillary Clinton now opining on this, and a great tweet the other day from my friend, Jessica, who said, "She can't work her emails, but she knows everything about cryptocurrency". And then we see someone like you come along, and you spend the time understanding it, you spend the time embracing it, you go down the rabbit hole and you understand exactly what it is.

At this time of high inflation, very scary inflation, it's really changing and affecting people's lives, you are part of the team that's considering this alternative, and I think that's why people are getting behind you, because they're bored of the old guard, 78-year-old Presidents who really don't understand what's going on in the world. It's why people like Bukele, a politician who can be questioned, but at the same time is somebody who is understanding of younger people. Because, I mean, the old guys are retiring, right?

Mayor Francis Suarez: But you know, the thing is about people like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party generally, and I don't want to make this about party, because this should not be a partisan thing, right, to me this is not about the party, it's not about the letter next to our name. I think people obsess about that, and they make it about that, and that's wrong. I just say this: oftentimes, those people who portend to care the most about the impoverished in our community are the ones who, in many ways, are the most hostile to Bitcoin, which is wrong, it's just absolutely wrong.

What Bitcoin has done, or what it does, is a few things. One, and probably most importantly, it creates a system of exchange where people are not subjected to the wild inflation and wild devaluation of currencies through, oftentimes, corrupt actors. So I think that's one of the biggest things. That's why you're seeing it in Central America, that's why you're seeing it in South America and in Africa, and I think that has an incredible power to liberate people and democratise their choices.

I think the second part of it is this idea that people should have a right to get a return. We've created a financial system where, unless you're wealthy, you can't risk capital; unless you're wealthy, you can't make money. So then we complain that there's a tremendous amount of income inequality, which of course there is. So then the question is, well how are you supposed to make money if you put your money in a bank account, you get zero interest, and by the way, the money that you had today is worth 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% less than what it was a year ago.

So, it's an impossibility that somebody is not only not going to make a return, they're actually losing money by having their money in a bank account. This is simple economics, we're not talking about derivatives, we're not talking about complicated things. So, I don't know why it's hard for people to understand. It should not be partisan, it should not be about Elizabeth Warren or Hillary Clinton, or anybody on the Republican side, it really should be about understanding the fundamentals, understanding why has a computer programme been so successful at substituting a human-run programme? I think that's something that fundamentally, we need to look at.

I'm going to tell you this now: where human conditions are broken, computers and computer programmes will fill the void, and it's going to happen in our generation looking forward, and it's going to happen to municipal governments, it's going to happen in different places, and I'm seeing that disruption as clearly as I see you right in front of me.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's backed by maths and truth, which is a strong point.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Exactly, and it's objective.

Peter McCormack: Yeah. But the partisan issue is an interesting one, as a point you make, because it's definitely been picked up by politicians who seem to be more on the right, not entirely, not exclusively. I was going to read you something my friend, Parker Lewis, wrote, because this is a great tweet. He put, "Liberals are going to love Bitcoin when they figure out what it can do for lower-income families, but Democrats will hate it. Conservatives will love Bitcoin when they figure out what it can do for the budget deficit, but Republicans will hate it".

So, it seems to be a thing that we understand that Bitcoin isn't a partisan issue. We understand it can benefit everybody, but it seems to hold some kind of existential threat to politicians, or they feel like it does.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, the problem is everything does right now. We live in such a divided world, and I think that's the other reason why people gravitate towards me in the sense that, I was blessed to be elected in a city that is majority Democrat. I'm a Republican, so again, not to obsess over the letter, but I was elected by 85%. So, I'm re-elected by close to 80%. So, I was elected and re-elected by a vast swath of the people in my city, because I try to focus on how to better their quality of life, I try to focus on their lives.

One of the things that I can do as a leader, to make their lives better, as opposed to this crazy prism where everything is so divisive, so antagonistic, and there is a point that you sort of touched on that I want to go a little deeper in, because I don't think people totally understand, which is the wide adoption of Bitcoin will create fiscal discipline in governments, and I'm not sure people have completely understood that.

The thing is here now, because governments control their own currency, they can print money, essentially. They can borrow money in whatever ways they want, and they can set interest rates. When they go to a currency that they don't control, they don't have that leisure. They can't just print more money, that's not in the toolbox, they actually have to balance -- so, we in our city, we actually balance our budget, a really crazy concept in government.

Peter McCormack: What?

Mayor Francis Suarez: I know, it's crazy!

Peter McCormack: What?!

Mayor Francis Suarez: I know, it's crazy. No, this is actually even crazier. We actually have a surplus.

Peter McCormack: What?!

Mayor Francis Suarez: We have $160 million in the piggybank.

Peter McCormack: That's unbelievable.

Mayor Francis Suarez: It's unbelievable.

Peter McCormack: Did you inherit a balance book?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, understand that I've been a councilman and mayor for 12 years. Actually, what I inherited when I got here in November 2009 was a broken government. We had just had the financial meltdown, the market meltdown, the real estate bubble burst, and we had, for the first time ever, a 20% budget deficit. So we had, what do you call it, a do-nothing deficit. If you did nothing, this is what your deficit would be, of $115 million on a $600 million budget.

So, we had to cut 20% of our budget in one year. So, when I see these governments say, "You can't cut, it's impossible to cut", we cut 20% in one year, and it was painful, it was very painful. But we had to cut, we didn't let go of one person, but we had to cut salaries dramatically, we had to cut pension benefits dramatically. We obviously would have liked to have not had to do it, but we didn't have a choice. We had to tighten our belt, and we had to save the city, and then we built up its reserves over time, by making good investment decisions, and now we're in a very, very good place. We have the second highest bond rating available, but the highest bond rating a city has ever had, which is AA+.

Peter McCormack: Why do you think the federal government struggles so much then to balance the books; is there no well?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Because, no, they've used it as a way to manipulate. This is the reason why Bitcoin is successful. They've used it as a tool. They use it as a tool. They realise that you're just playing with the money supply. So, when you play with the money supply, certain things happen, and you have to understand, the dollar's also a -- and this is where the US will really have to figure things out, because the dollar's an instrument of public policy throughout the world.

That doesn't mean that the US can't hold Bitcoin and can't use Bitcoin as an instrument of public policy, because it's resources at the end of the day, and this country has a tremendous amount of resources. And part of our ability to be influential in the world is to use those resources in an appropriate manner, to make sure that we can protect our citizens, and that we create prosperity across the world, in part so that people aren't flooding us all the time.

But yeah, it's going to create a lot more fiscal discipline, because governments like the United States and others are not just going to be able to print their way out of financial problems. So, there has been talk about balance budget amendments. I think that's something that's worth looking at very seriously in the federal level. Unless there's some emergency declaration, the federal government should be required to balance its budget, just like we're required to balance our budget, just like in your home, you can't not balance your budget. It doesn't work that way, otherwise you're going to be on the streets real soon.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, and you know what, when we have 6.2% inflation, it's not just debasing everyone in here's savings and salaries, it's debasing your budget.

Mayor Francis Suarez: No doubt. But I mean, who thinks that it's actually 6.2%?

Peter McCormack: Nobody does. That's the lowest they can give you.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Sure.

Peter McCormack: We know it's probably 10%, 15%.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah. I mean, you don't count real estate inflation, there's a lot of things that aren't counted. So, nobody really believes it's 6%, but it's shocking. I mean, that's a shockingly high number, even in terms of the CPI. So, it's really sad in a way, but in another way it's a huge opportunity, and I think we're in a critical moment. China has given us a huge favour by banning mining and banning Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, what a mistake that will turn out to be.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, it's understandable, because they're a communist, central-controlled government. So, what's interesting about the US is we struggle with something like a virus, because we're a democracy. Everybody has an opinion. But China's an autocracy. They just tell you, "You've got to stay home, you've got to do this", there's no debating about any of these things.

Peter McCormack: New York might disagree with you.

Mayor Francis Suarez: That's true. That's why they're all coming here.

Peter McCormack: I know, they have all come here.

Mayor Francis Suarez: I know, it's amazing. But we've definitely benefitted from this moment. But I think here, in this country, we have an enormous opportunity to get a larger market share of the Bitcoin mining, which I'm a huge proponent of. I think what people don't understand, they've made a big issue of ESG, which is a totally bogus issue, but I will say this. American mining companies, and I'm never heard of one that doesn't, it's not completely carbon neutral. They're very ESG conscious, and even the biggest ones that I've been to.

But the other thing that's really interesting is, I don't know if you've ever seen or been to a place called Marble, North Carolina?

Peter McCormack: No, I haven't.

Mayor Francis Suarez: I don't expect you to be.

Peter McCormack: I've been to Raleigh, is that South Carolina?

Mayor Francis Suarez: I think Raleigh is North Carolina as well.

Peter McCormack: I've been to Raleigh.

Mayor Francis Suarez: But Raleigh's a bigger city. So, the reason why I say Marble, and I know they're going to hear this and they're going to call me, one of the biggest mining companies, not the biggest mining company, in the country has a facility in Marble, North Carolina. And the reason why I say that is because it used to be a Levi's manufacturing facility. Follow me.

So, those jobs that were in that facility left overseas to China, that could do it cheaper. And what happened, that city went from a population of thousands to a population of 400. It was decimated by the loss of manufacturing jobs. What's happening now, now they have a multi-megawatt mining facility there, which is incredible and I've seen it in person, and they're bringing those jobs back to rural America.

So, there's this thought that Bitcoin is something that will just help the elite, or people in the urban areas, and this is delivering jobs, what I call a technological industrial revolution, in the United States, which can create a lot of prosperity, not just in the urban areas, but also in the rural areas. People don't know that, because Bitcoin mining is so mysterious. It's like, "Bitcoin mining is so bad", etc, and it's actually not bad. It doesn't consume as much electricity as people like to make it seem like. And in the US in particular, because remember, before China banned mining, 60% or 70% of the market share was in Russia and China, right.

So, you had their coal-producing, coal-burning country, so obviously that's where the ESG issues came from. You had countries that are using dirty energy and that are mining by and large, but that's changing almost overnight, thanks to China's actions.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean it's a bit more than that. I was in Texas recently with Governor Abbott, and talking to him. You know, he's like yourself, he understands Bitcoin to an extent, he wants to support the Bitcoin industry. But he wants to bring miners into Texas, into Austin, not only because it brings jobs, but actually also, it has this new magical property of helping stabilise the grid, which is this whole new weird thing about Bitcoin, which people are trying to get their head around.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, they don't understand that what the miners do oftentimes is, they'll go to power companies and they'll look at what is their excess. Believe it or not, there's a lot of things about power that people don't know. First of all, there's a lot of wasted power, a ton of wasted power. In fact, I would say 30% or 40% of generated power is wasted. So, that's one factor. So, they'll go there and they'll say, "Look, why are you wasting this? Let us harness this, let us use it". And then they do it with a thought process of either being completely clean, in terms of how they're getting it, or offsetting whatever is not particularly clean that they're getting.

Peter McCormack: Yeah. So, let's talk a little bit about energy and the energy mix; it's something that's discussed quite a bit. I also want to talk a little bit about climate change issues, because I know it affects Miami. We'll come to that secondly. But what's the energy mix like here in Miami; where do you draw your energy from?

Mayor Francis Suarez: So, it's predominantly nuclear, and then our energy company, which is Florida Power and Light, they're very innovative, and a few years ago, to their credit, they got into it with the solar industry, or the solar companies, or people who wanted rooftop solar. And they fought it a little bit, which is understandable. But then, what they did was interesting; they pivoted. We live in a disruptive world, and so you have two choices. You can pivot and try to get beyond the disruption and get ahead of the disruption, or you can wither away and die, basically.

So, what they did was, they pivoted and they became the largest purveyor of solar in the country. So, we have solar power and we have nuclear power. Nuclear's clean, which obviously you have to do something with nuclear waste, but it's clean generation, it doesn’t have any carbon emission, which is what creates obviously the climatic issues. So, we have the possibility of being a Bitcoin mining hub as well, and that's something that I've been focussed a lot on, trying to create those connections.

We had our first big breakthrough with the city of Homestead, which is a city close to Miami, in the county that we reside in, which has done a partnership with a local entrepreneur, who is taking their excess energy as well and is doing a Bitcoin mining facility, a 10-megawatt facility. So, the sky's the limit. You can go around the state and look at those kinds of opportunities and create public/private partnerships to take excess power and put it to good use.

Peter McCormack: Why do you think there's been this kind of, I don't know how to put it, reversal against nuclear in some places? I know across parts of Europe, they've been decommissioning nuclear facilities and not replacing them. And we know, in certain places where they're decommissioning them, they're having issues with blackouts. Why do you think that issue exists?

Mayor Francis Suarez: I think nuclear, it's had its moments, certain when the technology was new was probably the height of it. Then it went through some time with some of the incidents, like Chernobyl and others.

Peter McCormack: Fukushima.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, where we were afraid of what could happen. Obviously, they become potential targets, but I think it's seeing a renaissance, in my opinion. I actually see it a little bit the opposite. I think we're seeing a renaissance in nuclear. I think people understand that it's extremely clean, certainly by comparison to coal, it's almost unlimited. And of course, you have to do something with the nuclear material, the waste. But if you actually invest, which is sort of the opposite, if you actually invest and you allow the nuclear power companies to stay state-of-the-art, it can be done extremely safely.

What's interesting about Miami, to your point number two about climate change here --

Peter McCormack: Yeah, let's talk about that.

Mayor Francis Suarez: -- is we have essentially three climatic phenomena that we deal with. One of them is obviously hurricanes, which come seasonally from August to, I think, October more or less. Then you have what we call dry day flooding, believe it or not, which is we have a poor subsoil, which is limestone, so the water actually pools up, based on the tides and based on the moon, basically, and they call it a King Tide. The water actually comes up from underneath and pools in certain areas of the city.

Then you have rain bombs. They call them rain bombs, because they're more intense, in terms of duration and amount of water, than usual, and that's one of the ones that really creates flooding around the city. But we have not buried our head in the sand and said, "Hey, these things don't exist [or] we're going to deny that this is happening", or whatever. We've actually done something very unusual. Our residents voted to tax ourselves, which is not something we like to do, to the tune of $400 million; $200 million for climatic resiliency projects to adapt to these kinds of climatic events.

What people don't realise about Miami, and this is probably going to shock you, is that Miami has actually suffered less Hurricane damage in the last ten years than New York City.

Peter McCormack: I would not have guessed that all. Yeah, interesting.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, because of Sandy. So, we're just much more resilient, we can experience more storms and not have as much damage, because we're more prepared, I guess is a better way of saying it.

Peter McCormack: But was it just that Sandy was just one freak event for New York?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Sandy was a big event. So, New York certainly wasn't prepared for it. But I mean, if you just take that snapshot and you say to yourself, let's say it's a jeopardy question, would you get the right answer? Most people wouldn't, I think.

Peter McCormack: So, there are a lot of people, and it definitely exists within the Bitcoin community, of people who are not just sceptical of policy with regards to dealing with climate change, but actually reject the idea that there is human cause of climate change, especially within my community. I'm not one of those, I've been yelled at for being somebody that said, "There is climate change". What kind of message would you give to people like that?

Mayor Francis Suarez: I think the message is twofold, or threefold. One is, look, let's first deal with what we're seeing. We're definitely seeing things, I mean they're tangible, this is not speculation. I mean, I just gave you three events that we see on a regular basis. So, let's deal with that. So, from an adaptation perspective, let's deal with that.

From a mitigation perspective, which is essentially implementing policies that reduce carbon emission, to me we have a model here in Miami where we say the environment is the economy. There is this notion that you have to pick one or the other; it's either, do something good that's good for the environment, but is shitty for the economy; or, do something that's good for the economy, but shitty for the environment. And I think we try to marry the two things, and you're starting to see it anyway, so with electric vehicles and rooftop solar, and all the different technologies that are becoming ubiquitous, so it's kind of already happening in our generation.

Then I think the third thing is we, as human beings, we have an obligation, I think a common obligation, and I have two kids. I have a 7-year-old and I have a 3-year-old, and I want to make sure that my kids get to experience the world that I got to experience, right. I don't want there to be animals that are extinct that I got to see that they didn't get to see, fish, etc. So, I think we all have a common obligation to do what we can within our power, individual power, to basically be good stewards to the Earth, I mean it's that simple.

I don't think that there's an economic problem with that, I think it's on the contrary. I actually think in life, sometimes it's actually good to sacrifice a little bit, not get everything that you want all the time, and do things that are healthy for the greater good versus you individually.

Peter McCormack: I've got to ask you about MiamiCoin.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Go for it.

Peter McCormack: Tell me about it, what's the deal with it?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Sure, so the deal is this. The deal is, it's a Bitcoin-backed coin. So, as you know about Bitcoin, it's the most decentralised, most stable, most unhackable system, but it is a blockchain that was built exclusively for Bitcoin transactions, essentially exclusively for Bitcoin transactions. So, what MiamiCoin is is a derivative of that chain. So, a variety of developers, Princeton grads, have created a blockchain called Stacks.

Peter McCormack: Muneeb?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, Muneeb and others. And it basically hashes onto the Bitcoin blockchain. So what they basically said, their thesis was, "Look, let's create a coin on Stacks, which hashes onto the Bitcoin blockchain, and that the mining revenue of that coin, a portion of it", in this case 30% of the benefit, if you will, "gets put in a digital wallet for the cities". So, it's a little bit different than Bitcoin in the sense that Bitcoin, the entire economic incentive is for the miner. The miner who mines it gets 100% of the mining revenue, and that's great. In the case of MiamiCoin, the miners get 70% of the revenue, the city gets 30% of the revenue in a digital wallet.

We thought at the beginning of this, maybe this thing will do $3 million in a year, maybe it will do $5 million, who knows, right. We're, I think, three months in and it's raised $30 million.

Peter McCormack: Wow!

Mayor Francis Suarez: So, what we're going to do with it is, we're going to do two things, which I think are super fascinating and I'd love to hear your perspective on this. One is, we're going to take a piece of it in fiat, and I'll tell you why. We're going to take about $5 million in fiat, and the only reason why we're going to do that is because we want to prove to our residents it actually exists, right, that this is not some fucking --

Peter McCormack: Yeah, "Here's some real money".

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, it's not like a virtual thing that is in somebody's imagination or on some Twitter account and it's not real. So, we're going to do that just as a viability threshold. The remaining $25 million, we're going to stake it, and the staking yield is going to be Bitcoin which of course is, as we know, the most reliable, the most dependable of all the cryptocurrencies.

So, what we're doing is, I think what we're going to finally end up doing is, we're going to say to all registered voters in Miami, and this is an incentive for people to register to vote in Miami, so pay attention, guys; we're going to give them a Bitcoin wallet, we're going to give them a digital wallet, and we're going to give them a quarterly Bitcoin dividend. So, every single Miamian is going to get Bitcoin in their digital wallet on a quarterly basis.

So, think about a city in America, or think about a city anywhere really in the county, where you're a resident, your government has innovated, and the biproduct of that innovation is Bitcoin for you. I think it's fascinating, I don't think it's happened anywhere in the world. Maybe it's in oil-producing countries, stuff like that, where they would give like an oil dividend, but it's a fascinating concept and it's going to empower people, it's going to educate people, and we're getting some very, very big exchanges that are excited about this project in creating the digital wallets, obviously in part for their own self-interest. By the way, Tyler and Cameron, we can talk too!

Peter McCormack: What's the population here of Miami?

Mayor Francis Suarez: So, our population is about, depending on the census, if you believe the census, it's somewhere in the 600,000 range. We have 200,000 registered voters. The reason why it's important to do this as registered voters is because you need to verify. Anybody could say, "I'm a Miami resident". People think Miami's a place that punches above its weight. So, people who live in other unincorporated areas of the county think they live in Miami, but they really live in Kendall, or they live in North Dade, or whatever. So, there has to be an authentication method for the people who are receiving it, and a place that we can verify.

Peter McCormack: So, as you know, the Bitcoin community can be quite savage.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, it's okay.

Peter McCormack: I'm not going to debate the technicals behind Stacks and MiamiCoin, because we don't need to do that today. But the idea that Bitcoin gets into the wallets of everyone in the city, for a city that is pro-Bitcoin, with a mayor that is pro-Bitcoin, that is cool.

Mayor Francis Suarez: It's amazing.

Peter McCormack: We've seen it out in El Salvador, where President Bukele is trying to get Bitcoin in people's hands so they understand it. Look, some will get rid of it straightaway, some will hold on to it. What's the response been from your constituents, the people who aren't bitcoiners; are they saying, "What are you doing?" or, "This is amazing"?

Mayor Francis Suarez: No, it's the opposite. First of all, here's the thing, and this is the biggest surprise. I'll go to restaurants, I literally was in a restaurant for lunch before we met, and the waitress at the restaurant, she's an investor, so she knows about Bitcoin, holds Bitcoin, etc. I've had people that are servers, hostesses, janitors that have thanked me for what I'm doing in the crypto space.

So, that's why I keep telling you that all my experiences, whether they be on Twitter, or whether they be in real life, they lead me to believe that the number of people that know about Bitcoin, have invested in Bitcoin, or are thinking about investing in Bitcoin, or are influenced by Bitcoin, is massive, I mean, massive, like way, way, way bigger than what most people think, way bigger. I'm talking orders of magnitude bigger.

So, they're just thrilled, because what they see is not just -- listen, they don't just see that one initiative. What they see is XBTO, naming the team, Inter Miami; they see FTX spending $200 million on the arena; they see exchanges like eToro and Blockchain.com moving and creating jobs in the city. So, they see this ecosystem growing, and they realise that it's not only going to benefit them as individuals, but it's going to benefit their kids, and it's going to benefit their unborn grandkids. So, in my estimation, there's a tri-generational impact on these technologies and people are excited.

There's this notion that in politics, you just have to spew hate and negativity to get ahead, and I totally do not subscribe to that. I think vision, positivity always wins. The problem is there's usually an absence of that.

Peter McCormack: Well, listen, when you get to those presidential debates, I'm going to be watching you closely, "Is he criticising them or is he talking policy?"

Mayor Francis Suarez: I'm going to be focusing on the positive stuff, trust me.

Peter McCormack: So, is that an admission you're going for it then?

Mayor Francis Suarez: We'll see!

Peter McCormack: I think so!

Mayor Francis Suarez: Is that a Freudian slip there?

Peter McCormack: We're not going to cut that, Danny! So, we're nearly done. In terms of the population, have you seen a massive increase of people coming in here? You say there's 600,000 people; what was it, 500,000 a year ago?

Mayor Francis Suarez: So, the only statistic that I've seen that has any sort of meaning is the number of people coming to Florida is like 1,500 a day.

Peter McCormack: Wow, a day.

Mayor Francis Suarez: So, I think a significant amount of those people are coming to Miami. It's hard to tell, for whatever reason in my opinion, we always undercount in our censuses. I think we're just doing too much fun stuff and we don't have time to fill out the form, so I think that's what ends up happening. We try our best to get it up there, but we're always laggers in terms of what our response rate is versus what dwelling units and the number of people that we have. So, I often think things are underreported by 20%, maybe 25%.

Peter McCormack: Okay. So, in terms of this massive increase of people, has that put a strain on the infrastructure; is that where your budget's now having to go? Are they the things you have to think about now?

Mayor Francis Suarez: No, it's actually the opposite, and I'll tell you this. So, this is where my national platform comes in, this sort of agenda for America, which is what we've done is we've created the conditions for prosperity. So, we've actually reduced taxes, our tax rate; we don't have a state income tax. So, if you're in New York, if you're in California, you're already paying an extra 14% in an area that's probably 2X more expensive. So, your cost-of-living differential is 2X and your income tax is 14%, or whatever. So, that's a huge advantage for Miami.

Peter McCormack: But where are they blowing the money then, because you could argue that places like, especially if you look up to San Francisco, which I know there has been a leak of people down to here, they have massive crime issues, massive homelessness issues, and they're taxing a wealthy population higher than anywhere else in the country?

Mayor Francis Suarez: 100%, and people are furious, because the way they look at it is, "Look, I'll pay the taxes, but give me a return on investment", you know what I mean? And so, they don't feel like they're getting that. And then it's worse than that, because what the government's doing is they're turning around and they're saying, "You, Elon Musk, F you"!

Peter McCormack: I know, how bad was that? What an own goal.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Crazy. I mean, it's insane. And so, had we been in this Miami moment a little earlier, I'm convinced that Elon would have been a Miami resident, but holding out hope.

Peter McCormack: Damn. Well, you can get more of the Bitcoin companies down here.

Mayor Francis Suarez: We will.

Peter McCormack: It's essentially you, Texas and Wyoming competing, but really it's you and Texas.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, I love Wyoming in terms of their laws; and listen, Senator Lummis is great and they have some amazing people there, and they get it.

Peter McCormack: Make good steak.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yeah, they do. And, by the way, a lot of people are moving to that state, believe it or not. But I always say, in terms of competition, because there is some friendly competition here, I always say, "If we're even, we're leaving". So, my goal is always to be, from a regulatory perspective, no worse than any other state, and potentially better, in terms of regulation. If we do that, I don't think there's anybody that's going to pick any place versus Miami.

There's nobody right now in Abu Dhabi thinking, "Man, I can't wait to go to Austin", you know what I mean; there's nobody in Columbia saying that. And again, it's nothing against Austin. I respect the people of Austin and I've been there multiple times, but --

Peter McCormack: They want to come here.

Mayor Francis Suarez: They want to come here.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well it's a beautiful city.

Mayor Francis Suarez: It's incredible, now Art Basel, this may be the largest sale of NFTs that we've had in the history of NFTs in the history of the world, right here in Miami this week. So, it's really a fascinating time to be in Miami and it's a fascinating time to be an American, if we get things right going forward.

Peter McCormack: Okay, my last thing I want to finish on with you, this can be difficult with politicians sometimes, not you, but especially in the UK, we often feel lied to, or don't trust them, feel let down. I mean, I'm just completely disengaged in UK politics now. There's no one for me to vote for. But occasionally I've met somebody and I'm like, "I could vote for that type of person", like yourself. You talk a good game, you're a bitcoiner, you like football, you speak Spanish. You're somebody I could think, "I can vote for that guy".

But as you climb that political ladder, how do you maintain that, how do you not become part of that old elite? I mean, is it something you think about?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Of course. And I think I'm lucky in a sense, because I'm a bit of an anomaly and bit of a unicorn in the sense that first of all, I've been around politics my whole life. My dad first ran for office when I was two years old. I did my first political commercial when I was two years old. I looked into a camera and in perfect Spanish, I said, "Vote for my dad, please"!

Peter McCormack: Nice!

Mayor Francis Suarez: And my entire career in politics has been in a non-partisan position. And as I talked to you about, some of the successes that I've had, being a uniter, in a city that is in majority a different party than I'm from. So, I think that helps. I think the generational inflexion point helps, and I think, look, at the end of the day, back to your point, there's going to be moments I'm sure on the debate stage, if I ever get there, or anything like that -- you see, I almost blew it a second time!

Peter McCormack: You're going to get there, everybody knows it, come on!

Mayor Francis Suarez: Well, there are going to be moments where I'm sure people are going to test you, and they're going to test who you're about and what you're about, and maybe somebody will try to push you into the negative, or something like that, and how do you manage that? I think you have to be willing to lose. You have to be willing to accept the possibility of losing. And actually, I would recommend a book, if you haven't read it. It's called Breathe, by Rickson Gracie, I don't know if you know Rickson Gracie?

Peter McCormack: No.

Mayor Francis Suarez: A super, super prominent Jiu-Jitsu family, the Gracie family.

Peter McCormack: I think I've heard Rogan talk about this.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Yes. Yeah, actually he was on Rogan's show, and he's amazing, and he talks about visualising every possible scenario, every possible outcome, including death. When he would fight, he would even visualise the possibility of dying, and accept it. He would accept, "Look, I'm taking a risk", because they would do what's basically fight to the death, essentially. So the idea was, accept every outcome, humiliation, death, anything that can go wrong; and once you've accepted that, you're ready.

So, I think there's a little bit of psychology and visualisation that goes into anything that's massive, in terms of pressure, and you accept the consequences and see what happens.

Peter McCormack: Well, listen, in a time of weak leadership, I think people need somebody to come forward who's a bit different, a bit more interesting.

Mayor Francis Suarez: No doubt.

Peter McCormack: And like you say, younger. I mean, how old are you?

Mayor Francis Suarez: I'm 44.

Peter McCormack: Oh, I'm 43!

Mayor Francis Suarez: There you go. No wonder why we get along!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well listen, look, I wish you the best.

Mayor Francis Suarez: Thanks, ditto.

Peter McCormack: If you run, I wish you success.

Mayor Francis Suarez: "If".

Peter McCormack: Let me ask you one thing, if you do it and if you get it, can I come to the White House?

Mayor Francis Suarez: Amen. What kind of colour M&Ms do you want?

Peter McCormack: I think I want the red ones on my team!