Case study · Updated August 2026

MiamiCoin: What Happened

Launched in 2021 with the Miami mayor's public backing, MiamiCoin lost roughly 95% of its value within months and later lost its main exchange listing entirely. It is the most useful local case study in Florida crypto — and it is still being promoted to people who do not know the story.

  • Never issued by the City of Miami — created by the CityCoins project
  • Fell ~95% from its September 2021 peak to about $0.0032 by May 2022
  • OkCoin suspended trading in MiamiCoin and NYCCoin, citing low liquidity
  • By 2023, reporting described the project as having quietly died

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Miami signpost
Launch year
2021
Decline from peak within months
~95%
OkCoin suspended trading
Delisted
City never issued it
Not official
Researched and written by the Crypto Florida editorial desk. Last fact-checked August 2026 against Florida Office of Financial Regulation records, the text of Florida Statutes Chapter 560, operator fee schedules and IRS digital-asset guidance.
No financial advice. We do not custody funds, take deposits or execute trades. Fees and limits move fast — verify on the operator's site before you pay. Our editorial policy →

What MiamiCoin was

MiamiCoin (ticker MIA) launched in 2021 as the first token in the CityCoins project, built on the Stacks protocol. The concept was that people could participate in a protocol notionally associated with a city, and that a portion of the value generated would flow to a wallet reserved for that city's optional use.

Miami's then-mayor promoted it publicly and enthusiastically, and the city's broader positioning as a crypto hub gave the project an aura of officialdom.

The single most important fact

The City of Miami never issued MiamiCoin

MiamiCoin was created by the CityCoins project, not by the City of Miami. The city did not issue it, did not guarantee it, did not underwrite it and owed holders nothing. It received some funds through the protocol's design, and it had vocal political support from the mayor.

A great many buyers read that as official backing. It was not, and the distinction turned out to matter enormously.

What actually happened

  1. Launch and enthusiasm MiamiCoin launches as the first CityCoins token, with public backing from Miami's mayor and substantial media coverage positioning Miami as a crypto capital.
  2. Peak The token reaches its high, with reporting at the time describing city-accessible funds in the low millions at peak valuations.
  3. Roughly 95% down MiamiCoin has lost close to all of its value, trading around $0.0032 as of 13 May 2022 — a decline of about 95% from the September peak.
  4. Liquidity disappears Singaporean exchange OkCoin suspends trading in both MiamiCoin and NYCCoin, citing low liquidity. Holders can withdraw their tokens or keep them in wallets, but buying, selling and trading is no longer possible on that venue.
  5. A quiet demise Reporting describes the CityCoins project as having effectively died, with MiamiCoin quoted at around $0.00035.
  6. Still being searched for Price and prediction pages continue to attract search traffic, frequently with unreliable data — precisely because delisting and minimal liquidity make accurate pricing difficult.

Where it stands now

Honestly: it is a historical artefact rather than a live market.

After the OkCoin suspension, meaningful liquidity disappeared. Price data on aggregator sites for MiamiCoin has been unreliable for years, and the reason is straightforward — you cannot compute a meaningful market price for an asset that barely trades. Any figure you see quoted should be treated as an artefact of thin data rather than a price you could actually transact at.

What has not disappeared is search interest. "MiamiCoin price prediction" pages continue to be published, and that combination — dead asset, live search demand, unreliable data — is exactly the environment in which people get taken advantage of. If a site is promoting MiamiCoin to you as a current opportunity in 2026, ask yourself what they are actually selling.

Can you still buy it?

Technically, perhaps, in small amounts on whatever thin venue still quotes it. Sensibly, no, and we would not help you do it.

Three reasons, none of them about price prediction:

  • Liquidity. With the main listing gone, entering or exiting at any meaningful size would move the price against you severely. An asset you cannot sell is not an investment.
  • Price discovery. Unreliable data means you cannot know whether you are paying a fair price, because there is no functioning market to compare against.
  • The project. Reporting described CityCoins as having met a quiet demise. Buying into a protocol whose developers and community have largely moved on is a different proposition from buying an actively maintained asset.

If you want exposure to cryptocurrency from Miami, the sensible route is the same as everywhere in Florida: a licensed exchange, a large-capitalisation asset with genuine liquidity, an order book rather than a buy button, and self-custody for anything long-term. Our Miami exchange guide covers which platforms serve the city.

Four lessons worth keeping

MiamiCoin is more useful as a lesson than as an asset, and the lessons generalise well beyond city tokens.

1. Political endorsement is not financial backing

A mayor promoting a token does not make the city liable for it, does not make it official, and does not create any obligation to holders. Enthusiasm from a public figure is marketing, not underwriting. This applies to every "government-endorsed" crypto product you will ever see.

2. Liquidity can vanish, and that is its own risk

The OkCoin suspension is the part of this story people underweight. The price falling 95% is painful; losing the ability to trade at all is worse, because it removes even the option to exit at a loss. Before buying any small token, ask where it trades and what happens if that venue stops listing it.

3. A 95% decline is normal for a small token

Not an anomaly, not bad luck, not a failure of execution. The base rate for small-capitalisation tokens losing almost all of their value is high. Any position size should assume it as a plausible outcome rather than a tail risk.

4. Local pride is not an investment thesis

MiamiCoin worked as a story because people liked Miami. That is a genuinely poor reason to buy a financial instrument, and it is the same mechanism behind sports fan tokens, "local" stablecoins and community coins generally. Affinity is what makes these products sell.

The general test

Before buying any small token: where does it trade, how deep is the book, who maintains the protocol, and what exactly does the "official" association consist of? Four questions, answerable in ten minutes, and they would have flagged MiamiCoin's risks before the peak rather than after.

Two related categories generate a lot of Florida search traffic and deserve brief, honest treatment.

Sports and fan tokens

Football and sports clubs — including Inter Miami — have engaged with fan tokens, NFTs and crypto sponsorship at various points. These are distinct from MiamiCoin and from each other. What they generally share: they are usually issued by third-party platforms rather than by the club itself; they are marketed as engagement or utility products rather than investments; and they carry the same illiquidity and concentration risks as any small token, often with additional platform risk on top.

If you want to support a club, buy a shirt or a ticket. If you want an investment, that is a different decision requiring different analysis.

Other city and state tokens

NYCCoin followed the same trajectory as MiamiCoin and was suspended by OkCoin at the same time. Similar concepts have appeared elsewhere. The pattern is consistent enough to be a rule: a token whose main selling point is a place name has a place name and not much else.

Worth distinguishing from something genuinely different: Florida legislators have twice proposed a state cryptocurrency reserve — House Bill 487 and Senate Bill 550 were withdrawn in May 2025, and narrower versions returned as HB 1039 and SB 1038 in January 2026, restricted to assets averaging at least $500 billion market capitalisation over 24 months. That is the state potentially buying an existing asset, not issuing a new one, and only bitcoin currently meets the threshold. See our Florida regulation guide.

Related Miami guides

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