The mayor of Reno is making a big bet on the Blockchain

Hillary Schieve The mayor of Reno, Nevada took me by the arm before walking down the street from town hall. It continues to intervene when we are crossing the public square on the other side, and does not release until we reach our destination on foot, or rather, the wing: a sculpture of steel and stained glass. . It’s his name Space Whale. In 2016, a group led by artist Matt Schultz created Burning Man, an annual festival that aims to run a few hours north of the city, later telling me “as our means of protecting our hypocrisy to protect the oceans”. After the festival, the city rented the sculpture for $ 64,000.

Up close, the whales are slightly weakened. Most of the crystals that can be reached have been shattered, and the metal skeleton is losing its luster. Schieve, tucked into her tight coat, her hair blowing with the cold April wind, reaches for a piece of glass and sighs. “I’m on a campaign to save the whale,” he says. It was a controversial statement. The whaling lease ended in August 2019. The artists tried to sell it to the city because it had little interest at a price of $ 500,000, and when the price later dropped, the city insisted that the artists had to pay for the repairs. Schultzen’s team then tried to sell it for $ 1 million on the Facebook Marketplace. There are no recipients. Meanwhile, no one gave TLC to the sculpture. The mention of “whale” in Schieve’s office catches the eye. A white whale, stranded on the banks of the Truckee River.

But this spring, Schieve (pronounced SHE-vee) came up with a potential solution: a token that is not fungibleNFT or NFT offered for sale block chain call Tezos. The new owner would receive a .CAD file and a video from the artist, but the actual physical sculpture would be in the middle of Reno Square. The money raised would raise money for the city to clean the whale and take care of it so that people can enjoy it. Schieve realized that this kind of semi-symbolic sale might require some sweeteners. So he was thinking of offering benefits, like making a label on his annual trip Burning Man along with the elect. (They don’t spend the night, Schiev added; he had no intention of endangering future election campaigns with drugs and orgies).

The issuance of the NFT is not, at the moment, such a radical thing, even for a government. All cities and states have tried to create blockchain links at times. 2018, Cleveland he named himself Blockland, even though the label seems to have gone down. Wyoming has debuted itself the regulatory paradise of cryptocurrency, a label that is now being questioned by other states, including Nevada. All that is needed is a company that welcomes “new ideas” and an interested electorate, especially those with a cypherpunk ring. That’s not what’s happening in Reno. For Schiever, NFT was the door to something else.

An early sign appeared in January from Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a person who was recently in tears throwing out technology-based ideas and what a stick you see, he tweeted about turning his city into a “crypto innovation center” centered around Bitcoin. Schieve was pleased. “When will you become a $ LINK ship?” the same teased response, cryptically for most readers. He was talking about a blockchain platform called Chainlink, perhaps known for worshiping “sailors” who search for social media quotes. Their loyalty is expressed through the levels achieved by the # HODLing (i.e., having) cryptocurrency platform, called Link. Apparently, the mayor of Reno was a member of the battalion – he “accumulated the bond” in community speech. “It was very delicious,” Schiev says of the meme invasion inspired by his tweets.