CityCoins FAQ

What are CityCoins?

CityCoins offer people a way to support their city and grow its crypto treasury while earning Bitcoin BTC and Stacks STX yield for themselves. Each city has their own coin, starting with Miami and MiamiCoin ($MIA). See MiamiCoin FAQ in the second half of this document.

CityCoins are municipal equity, as opposed to municipal debt.

Learn more about MIA

What can I do with CityCoins?

With any CityCoin, you can mine it, hold it, stack it to earn STX and BTC yield, borrow it, lend it, and program it. Built on open source software, CityCoins are a new way for developers to create applications and experiment with innovative use cases.

At launch, the benefit of CityCoins will be generating STX and BTC yield. However, CityCoins are programmable and will have additional utility over time. The possibilities of CityCoins become endless as cities one by one begin to #pickupthebag and communities and software develop around their respective CityCoins. CityCoins communities will create apps that use tokens for rewards, local benefits, access control (to digital or physical spaces), trading, lending, smart contract execution, and more. As one simple example, local businesses can provide discounts or benefits to people who show they “Stack for their city” by Stacking their CityCoins.

How do CityCoins work?

CityCoins have two initial functions at launch: mining and stacking.

Mining

CityCoins are mined by forwarding STX (the Stacks token) to the CityCoins smart contract on the Stacks protocol. The winning miner can claim their rewarded CityCoins from their Stacks address at any time.

30% of the STX that miners forward to the Stacks protocol is sent directly to a wallet that is reserved for each city that is part of the CityCoins ecosystem. The mayor of a city may elect at any time to #pickupthebag and accept the reserved wallet to access the treasury for use by the city.

Stacking

CityCoins generate yield for holders in STX and BTC through a function on the Stacks protocol known as Stacking.

The remaining 70% of the STX that miners forward to the Stacks protocol is distributed to holders of CityCoins who choose to stack their tokens. Stacking requires holders to lock their CityCoins for determined “reward cycles.” Stacking CityCoins yields STX rewards. STX rewards can further be stacked on Stacks to yield BTC rewards.

What are CityCoins’ Tokenomics?

Demand for CityCoins is driven by their yield-generating capabilities in addition to their growing utility, enabled by the fact that they’re programmable. CityCoins will continue to grow over time as cities and their citizens see fit, bestowing reputational, identity, ownership, access control, and programmable utility on top of their fundamental economic functionality. Learn more about CityCoins Tokenomics.

Why are CityCoins built on Stacks?

Stacks enables smart contracts and apps on Bitcoin. It enables a function called “Stacking“, which yields BTC when you lock STX in the protocol. CityCoins leverage the Stacking function to enable CityCoin holders to Stack their tokens to yield STX, which can be further Stacked to yield BTC.

How do I mine CityCoins?

When a new CityCoin is launched, anyone can compete to mine. Miners compete by forwarding STX into the Stacks protocol. Once per block, a winning miner is randomly selected by a Verifiable Random Function (VRF), weighted by total STX spent. 30% of STX spent by miners is forwarded into a custodied wallet, which is reserved for each city should they choose to accept it. The remaining 70% STX is distributed to Stackers as rewards.

CityCoins may be available on exchanges shortly after mining begins and rewards are generated.

How do I Stack CityCoins?

CityCoins can be locked on the Stacks protocol for a voluntary period of time (“reward cycle”), yielding STX as a reward. The rewarded STX comes from the 70% of forwarded STX from CityCoin miners. The yielded STX can be further stacked to yield BTC rewards.

What is the city wallet, how does it get funded, and how does it get used?

Each respective city has a special wallet that is custodied for them and can be claimed at any time. It is funded by the CityCoins protocol, which automatically forwards 30% of the STX transferred by miners directly to it. City wallets can be used for whatever purpose the city deems fit. As CityCoins are mined, city treasuries will ongoingly accumulate STX. Before cities can use the funds within, each city’s mayor must claim their custody wallet.

Who built CityCoins and MiamiCoin?

The ideation, development, and launch of the CityCoins project has been stewarded by Freehold, with support and contribution from Syvita Guild, Z1, DoubleUp, and the Stacks Community.

Is CityCoins live?

The first CityCoin to launch is MiamiCoin ($MIA). MiamiCoin will be live June 8, 2021 at 3pm EDT for mining. The earliest $MIA miners receive a higher reward rate during the launch of the protocol. Head to the CityCoins Github to learn more.