Vancouver mayor's bitcoin investment proposal blocked by city, provincial law

• Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s proposal to invest city reserves in bitcoin is not allowed under the city's charter and British Columbia’s Municipal Finance Authority Act, according to a staff report.
• Staff concluded that bitcoin is not an eligible investment asset for the city, which is restricted to conservative instruments such as government and municipal securities, bank deposits and highly rated commercial paper.
• The report leaves open the possibility that Vancouver could accept bitcoin for taxes or fees if payments are immediately converted into Canadian dollars.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s plan to invest city reserves in bitcoin BTC$68,181.76 is not permitted under the Vancouver Charter and British Columbia’s Municipal Finance Authority Act, a staff report says.

The briefing released ahead of a March council meeting recommends closing a 2024 motion to make Vancouver a “bitcoin-friendly city,” after staff determined the plan violates municipal investment rules embedded in the city's charger. Staff wrote they “conclusively determined that under the Vancouver Charter, bitcoin is not an allowable investment asset for the City.”

The conclusion reflects the highly restrictive framework governing how Canadian municipalities can invest public funds. Section 201 of the Vancouver Charter allows the city to invest idle funds only in a narrow set of instruments, such as federal or provincial government securities, government-guaranteed bonds, municipal debt, bank-guaranteed investments, credit union deposits and certain pooled investment vehicles.

British Columbia’s Municipal Finance Authority Act reinforces the restriction.

Municipal investment pools are limited to conservative assets such as government bonds, municipal securities, bank deposits and highly rated commercial paper.

The law defines eligible securities as bonds, debentures, deposit certificates and promissory notes, reflecting a framework built around fixed income and cash equivalents. Stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies are not included.

A narrower question remains unresolved: whether Vancouver could still pursue the softer branding goal embedded in the motion by accepting bitcoin for taxes or fees, provided the cryptocurrency is immediately converted into Canadian dollars.

While the charter regulates how city funds are invested, it does not necessarily govern how payments are processed.

• Disrupting a Stagnant Market: Pudgy Penguins is utilizing a "Negative CAC" model to challenge the traditional $31.7B licensed toy industry by treating physical merchandise as a profitable user acquisition tool rather than just a final product.

• Despite a wave of "crypto-native" wins — like BNY Mellon acting as an ETF custodian and Kraken gaining Fed payment access — Bitcoin is increasingly ignoring positive industry news to follow global trends, such as the U.S. dollar index and interest rates.
• The same Wall Street adoption the industry spent years chasing has tightly coupled bitcoin with the Nasdaq, leading to a selloff in crypto right alongside tech stocks.
• While the price is currently stuck in a downward grind, the plumbing of the industry is becoming more robust, with heavyweights like ICE investing in exchanges and the White House encouraging banks to work with the sector.

Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.