Vancouver Mayor’s Bitcoin Reserve Dream Hits Legal Wall

Vancouver city staff have recommended that councillors drop Mayor Ken Sim’s Bitcoin motion, which ordered work on accepting payments in BTC and exploring a Bitcoin reserve for part of the city’s funds.

Bitcoin: “Not An Allowable Investment Asset”

In a report released on March 2 reviewing outstanding council directions, the Vancouver staff has deemed Bitcoin as a “not an allowable investment asset for the City”, suggesting that the Mayor Sim’s motion to turn Vancouver into a “Bitcoin friendly city” should be concluded. The report also asks council to de-prioritize some of the 78 motions passed since 2019 part of a broader clean‑up of outstanding directions.

The rationale for this, as stated by the report, is a “reprioritization of staff and resources” and the need for “coordinating and aligning work with related initiative(s)”: the goal is to reduce the city’s spending by optimizing internal capacity.

City staff back these conclusions with the Vancouver Charter, the provincial law that sets out how municipal funds can be invested.

The B.C. Ministry of Municipal Affairs has clarified that the Community Charter and the Vancouver Charter “don’t recognize cryptocurrency as payment for municipal services or other transactions,” so cities shouldn’t treat BTC like normal money on their balance sheets.

The ministry has also stated that local governments “are not permitted to hold financial reserves in cryptocurrency” because crypto is not on the listed of permitted investment vehicles laid out in the provincial legislation.

Under section 183 of the Community Charter, which the province applies to local governments’ funds, eligible investments are cited as things like Municipal Finance Authority securities, pooled funds, federal or provincial bonds, guaranteed bank products and similar high‑grade instruments. There is simply no legal category that would cover Bitcoin or other volatile digital assets, which doesn’t mean that it’s prohibited: it simply doesn’t exist in the law.

The Bitcoin Dream: A Bitcoin Friendly City

Mayor Sim’s Bitcoin motion pushed through in December 2024. Sim, who’s an investor in a cryptocurrency exchange, said he believed investing in Bitcoin was “the financially responsible” thing to do amidst inflation and market volatility. He went so far as to pledge a personal 10,000‑dollar Bitcoin donation to seed a municipal reserve, publicly lauding BTC as one of the most important financial innovations of the era.

What’s Next?

The staff was supposed to report back to council in the first quarter of 2025, but until the cited report, no other was made public.

The Vancouver city staff recommendation will land at council on March 10. Mayor Sim will be forced to decide whether to burn political capital defending his BTC agenda or watch his Bitcoin dreams be shelved and dismissed by his own administration.

Cover image from ChatGPT, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview