Back in November, Eric Adams promised that he would take his first three paychecks as the mayor of New York City in cryptocurrency. However, since he was sworn in on January 1, it took a while for him to finally keep that promise. This week, he became the first mayor of the Big Apple to be paid using crypto.

While this seems simple at first sight, there were a few legal twists involved. According to US Department of Labor rules, New York City staff cannot be paid in cryptocurrency. On the other hand, "anyone paid in U.S. dollars can have funds converted into cryptocurrency before funds are deposited into their account."

In this case, the official press release reveals that "Mayor Adams’ first paycheck will automatically be converted into cryptocurrency via Coinbase, a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing digital currency." This month's salary was converted to Ethereum and Bitcoin, but he might choose other coins for the next two paychecks (not stated in the press release, but possible).

The mayor's support of crypto came under fire by New York Finger Lakes environmental non-profit Seneca Lake Guardian, which said in a statement that "Mayor Adams is dead wrong and his ignorance could cost New Yorkers millions of dollars in energy bills while killing local economies, poisoning our water, and filling our air with deadly CO2 emissions."

As Eric Adams aims to turn New York City into a "center of cryptocurrency and other financial innovations" in addition to it already being "the center of the world," the entire crypto market is struggling with a sharp drop. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is now at roughly US$35,000 (a drop of 18.5 percent over the last 7 days) and Ethereum is doing even worse, with a value of US$2,400 which translates to a drop of almost 28 percent for the same period. 

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