Brazil’s second most populous city, Rio de Janeiro, is still on course to invest in crypto. The mayor of the city, Eduardo Paes, announced that Rio plans to allocate 1% of its treasury reserves to cryptocurrencies. Chicão Bulhões, the city’s secretary of economic development, reconfirmed this in an interview today. Bulhões maintained that Rio de Janeiro was still aiming to become a global crypto hub and was already directing resources at the project.

Interest in Rio de Janeiro’s plan to allocate 1% of its treasury to crypto has increased significantly

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro is working towards allocating 1% of its treasury reserve to cryptocurrencies. The move, which was inspired by the US city of Miami, has Rio aiming to become a global crypto hub by being more crypto-friendly. Speaking on the Nexo sponsored episode of First Mover, Chicão Bulhões, threw some more light on the status of the city’s plans.

Bulhões, who is the city’s secretary of economic development, noted that the first step was to sensitize and galvanize support from the city’s residents. While much still needs to be done to change the citizens’ perception of crypto, the government’s efforts in this direction have been paying off as interest in the asset class has increased, Bulhões points out.

Suddenly, the city was just really excited about this matter. All the press here in Brazil and Latin America wanted to know more and understand what the city was doing. Also, it got people the feeling that Rio de Janeiro was back, he said.

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Bulhões added that the benefits the city stands to get have also contributed to the growing interest. This is because Brazil has been struggling with inflation and digital currencies like Bitcoin are an inflation hedge.

 The last four years have been difficult for Brazil with inflation. And we know that some cryptocurrencies are deflationary and can be used for people not to lose purchasing power. That got people interested in the possibility of having an alternative to central banks, and having more possibilities to fight inequality, he noted.

Crypto adoption is reaching new levels

Like Rio’s government, cities are paying more attention to cryptocurrencies. Last year, it was proposed that workers be paid in cryptocurrencies in Brazil. New York, Vancouver, San Francisco, Tel Aviv are a few that have shown strong leanings to welcoming crypto investments.

The crypto market has also come under the radar of countries that can no longer ignore its massive growth. Russia is one such country. Russia caused some turbulence recently in the crypto market after its central bank made known plans to ban crypto in the country. They have turned more tolerant to crypto as Vladimir Putin noted that Russia would rather regulate the market.