Originally published 2021-11-09.
Yes, he really said it. On 7 November 2021, days after winning the New York City mayoral election, Eric Adams told CNN's State of the Union that the city's schools should teach children about cryptocurrency and blockchain. He framed digital money as a new way to pay for goods and services and argued that classrooms needed to catch up.
The idea came packaged with a personal pledge: Adams said he would take his first three paychecks as mayor in Bitcoin. Below we look at what he proposed, why critics pushed back, what actually happened once he took office, and what sensible money education about crypto could look like for students.
What Adams proposed in November 2021
Adams won the election on 2 November 2021, beating Republican Curtis Sliwa by a wide margin, and was due to take office on 1 January 2022. In the weeks between, he leaned hard into technology as part of his pitch for the city's future.
In the CNN interview he said young people he met kept asking him what Bitcoin and blockchain actually were, which convinced him schools had a gap to fill. His most quoted line was short: "We must open our schools to teach the technology, to teach this new way of thinking." He also said he wanted New York businesses to accept Bitcoin and other digital currencies, while promising to move carefully rather than rush.
A few days earlier, in a Bloomberg Radio interview, he had floated the idea of a dedicated city token modelled on MiamiCoin, a project launched in 2021 that let people mine a coin linked to Miami and directed part of the proceeds to the city. Adams had also tweeted on 4 November that he wanted New York to become the centre of the cryptocurrency industry.
He was not alone in thinking about crypto in the classroom. In March 2021 the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill asking state education officials to build a financial literacy programme for high schools that included cryptocurrency, though the measure still needed further approval to become law.
Why the timing drew criticism
The timing was striking. According to Wikipedia's record of the 2021 to 2022 market, Bitcoin hit its all-time closing high of about $67,500 on 7 November 2021, the very day of the CNN interview. A newly elected mayor talking up an asset at its peak, while also promising to be paid in it, made some observers uneasy.
Harvard economist Jason Furman was among the best-known critics. He reportedly wrote on Twitter that he liked Adams but did not think a mayor's job was to promote a currency he was about to be paid in, calling it "kind of grifty". Others raised the familiar objections to crypto as a whole: prices that swing wildly, the heavy electricity use of Bitcoin mining, and the use of digital coins in scams and illegal trade.
Supporters saw it differently. For them, a big city signalling openness to financial technology could attract companies, jobs and young talent, and teaching students about blockchain was no stranger than teaching them about the stock market.
What happened with the Bitcoin paycheck
Adams did follow through, but not in the way the headlines first suggested. A city government cannot simply hand an employee a salary in Bitcoin. On 20 January 2022, the mayor's office explained that US Department of Labor rules prevent New York City from paying staff in cryptocurrency. Instead, his normal dollar paycheck was converted automatically through the Coinbase exchange into Bitcoin and Ethereum before reaching his account. Any city worker who wanted the same could set up a similar conversion.
Announcing the move, Adams said: "New York is the center of the world, and we want it to be the center of cryptocurrency and other financial innovations."
The months that followed were rough for anyone holding crypto. In June 2022 Bitcoin fell below $20,000 for the first time since late 2020, and in November 2022 the exchange FTX collapsed into bankruptcy. A paycheck converted in January 2022 lost a large share of its dollar value within the year, a vivid example of the volatility critics had warned about.
Did New York schools start teaching crypto?
We could find no public record of a city-wide cryptocurrency course being added to the New York City public school curriculum during Adams's term. His November 2021 remarks were a policy idea, not an announced programme, and the city's crypto ambitions faded as the market slumped.
Adams served one term. He left the Democratic primary in April 2025, ran briefly as an independent, then withdrew in September 2025. His term ended on 31 December 2025, and Zohran Mamdani took office as mayor on 1 January 2026.
His interest in crypto did not end there. In January 2026, after leaving office, Adams promoted a token called NYC Token. Wikipedia reports that it briefly reached a market value of around $600 million before plunging after about $2.5 million was withdrawn from an account tied to its launch, prompting accusations of a "rug pull"; the team said part of the money was later returned.
What good crypto education could cover
The underlying question, whether teenagers should learn about digital money, is still worth asking. Many young people first hear about crypto from social media influencers, so a neutral classroom view could protect them rather than recruit them. A balanced unit might include:
- How payments work: cash, cards, bank transfers and blockchains, and who keeps the record in each case.
- Price versus value: what a price chart shows, why an asset can rise or crash quickly, and why past gains say little about the future.
- Risk and scams: pump-and-dump schemes, fake giveaways, phishing, and why anyone promising guaranteed returns should be treated with suspicion.
- Custody: the difference between holding coins yourself and leaving them on an exchange, as the FTX failure showed.
- Energy and regulation: how mining uses electricity, and how governments are deciding to tax and supervise digital assets.
The key distinction is between teaching about a technology and encouraging children to buy a speculative asset. The first builds judgement; the second is marketing.
Common misunderstandings
"Adams was paid in Bitcoin by the city"
He was not. The city paid him in dollars, as the law requires, and an exchange converted the money afterwards.
"Crypto lessons became mandatory in New York"
There is no evidence of that. The proposal was a comment on television, not a change to the curriculum.
"A city coin is the same as city money"
Projects such as MiamiCoin were private tokens that shared some proceeds with a city. They were not official currency and carried the same market risk as any other coin.
If you are curious about crypto yourself, the safest starting point is the same as for any investment: understand what you are buying, only risk money you can afford to lose, and be wary of anyone, mayor or influencer, who makes it sound easy.
Ways to buy #Bitcoin and other #crypto like #Ethereum ( #ETH) , #Cardano ( #ADA) , #BNB and more: Join #Binance, the biggest exchange in the world, buy, earn and spend crypto with their Visa Debit Card: https://accounts.binance.com/en/register?ref=13380876
Join #CryptoCom , Use our referral link https://crypto.com/app/m524bfdwja to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD 🙂 You can earn interest and use their Visa Debit Card.
Sign up with our referral link and earn up to 100 Euros in free #BORG to kickstart your crypto portfolio with #SwissBorg with your first transfer of 50 Euros! https://join.swissborg.com/r/alkimoKOWX
Earn passive income on many cryptocurrencies!
Join #Nexo , a great app to earn passive income, and earn $10 https://nexo.io/ref/d5js2kmhbw
Sources: Cointelegraph, 8 November 2021: Incoming NY mayor wants crypto taught in schools; NYC Office of the Mayor, 20 January 2022: Mayor Adams to receive first paycheck in cryptocurrency; Wikipedia: Eric Adams; Wikipedia: Cryptocurrency bubble.
COMMENTS