Bitcoin, mayor, Cool Valley, airdrop, St. Louis, Missouri

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Cool Valley, Missouri, a small town of about 1,500 residents in the St. Louis County area, recently received international attention after its mayor, Jayson Stewart, announced he planned to give each resident up to $ 1,000 in Bitcoin.

Stewart, a passionate environmentalist who has spent years cleaning up the world’s oceans and ran on a platform to correct old errors, believes Bitcoin education holds the keys to increasing prosperity, well-being and the sustainability of his city. Just as he dreams of a world without the environmental damage caused by irresponsible waste, he imagines a future where Bitcoin cleans up many ills from the financial system. Hoping to see a Bitcoin-enabled bank in town soon, Stewart sees Bitcoin as an avenue that can improve the city’s fortunes through increased wealth and business opportunities such as mining facilities and even Bitcoin events.

Much of it is about righting the wrongs of the past financial system. In the past, we didn’t have access to this incredible technology that we have today in terms of our financial system and the storage of our value.

Bitcoin

Stewarts plans to distribute Bitcoin to residents of Cool Valley is already fully funded. He explains that the plan is funded by private donors, with the aim of spreading adoption and educating users. Right now the project is fully funded for $ 1,000 per household, he confirmed, adding that the town has received other donations because the story has become so popular in a way that I never planned.

A day in my life through the eyes of @JaelinCollier pic.twitter.com/N1mAerlvT7

– Mayor Jayson Stewart (@coolvalleymayor) September 22, 2021

While Stewart thinks it would be very wise for a city to hold some of its cash in cryptocurrencies, ”he explains that there are legal hurdles to this, many of which are spelled out in the state’s constitution. with regard to cities investing in assets. He makes it clear that he is above all interested in seeing ordinary people, rather than government entities, benefit from Bitcoin. The more people who have a stake in the Bitcoin network, the more powerful it can become.

What really turns me on, and what I’m working on, is getting ordinary people to own Bitcoin, and that they really benefit from the appreciation of holding such an asset.

Stewart has encountered a mixed set of reactions from townspeople, ranging from excitement and curiosity to confusion, the latter being common among older members of the community. They have a lot of questions about what it is, “how do I store it?” », How can I access it? it lists.

The distribution process is not yet finalized, but education is among the key goals of the project because, in order to get their BTC, residents need to understand what they are receiving. For this, it is planned to organize workshops or similar learning opportunities. We’re going to get people to store their own Bitcoin as quickly as possible, says the mayor.

Missouri Mayor, @coolvalleymayor, Into bitcoin since 2015. I was working for a tech start-up, and we were virtual assistants for high-net-worth clients, and one of the coolest things I noticed was that this start- up let our customers pay. BTC in 2015 cc @BitcoinMagazine @ck_SNARKs pic.twitter.com/MGGUru3bki

– Kit (@kit_sats) September 22, 2021

Cool Valley is home to people from various economic backgrounds, so $ 1,000 sounds like different things to different people. The wish is, however, for residents to hold onto their coins for a period of time instead of selling them immediately, in part because of Stewart’s transparent belief that they will increase in value over time. Patience is a virtue, after all. In order to encourage this patience, it is planned to offer residents the option of a larger payment if they agree to hold their coins for a fixed period of time, a lower amount given to those who wish to sell.

We really want them to be able to understand the asset and become self-sufficient with their storage by understanding how to keep their own keys.

In addition to learning more about Bitcoin, the Stewarts initiative is likely to inspire other indirect benefits to the community. On the one hand, it is likely to introduce many residents to investing in general, which can bring many benefits in the future. Computer literacy is another area that is likely to improve with the Bitcoin incentive, and new users should start learning about other cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications as well. As such, it is likely that this move will ultimately inspire some residents to seek careers in the blockchain industry.

Clean up other messes

In his early 30s, Stewart first interacted with Bitcoin in 2015 while working as an assistant for Magic, a San Francisco-based company that often saw very, very wealthy clients send Bitcoin to company wallets, which Stewart would then convert to fiat in order to purchase various goods. Although he didn’t have a deep understanding of cryptocurrency, I thought it was cool internet money, he recalls.

As a child, Stewart dreamed of becoming a nature photographer and owning a wildlife sanctuary. This is why later in 2015, he quit his job at Magic to pursue a lifelong passion for environmental restoration and wildlife rehabilitation through his new business, PL28, which he has been operating ever since. Cool Valley. PL28’s mission was to clean up the oceans, a vocation that was central to my life for several years until Stewart ran for mayor in 2019.

Until I decided to run, I was just removing plastic from oceans, rivers, and different streams to try and improve the wildlife habitat for marine life a bit.

Through PL28, Stewart has helped clean up the oceans in places such as the Philippines, Haiti, the Bahamas, Los Angeles and Singapore. He explains that the cleaning process is different depending on the type of ecosystem at hand. At sea you usually get abandoned fishing nets that constantly trap and kill wildlife, whereas in a river environment like St. Louis’ you collect a lot of plastic bottles like milk jugs, he says.

A map showing the water cleaning efforts he has organized around the world. source: LinkedIn

Although he enjoys spending time with marine life, he regrets that the ocean cleaning work has been much more logistical, like the coordination of volunteers, as opposed to the direct field work on his part. All told, Stewart has worked with people in 47 different countries to collect plastic from the ocean, with that plastic typically being turned into usable plastic and turned into premium products made from salvaged materials.

Today, Stewart has moved on from active ocean cleaning, but his adventurous spirit of cleaning up the mess and mistakes of the past continues to motivate him.

Small town mayor

After high school, Stewart studied psychology at the University of Miami from 2008 to 2012. During his studies in 2011, he founded a record company Pink Fader with his first-year roommate. The duo were apparently successful because an act under their label ended up being Grammy nominated, which is cool, and we got a few songs into the top 50 of the charts, Stewart remembers with a hint of pride.

For Stewart, who moved around a lot first with his family and later due to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Cool Valley has been the most consistent place through various parts of his life. Young and armed with new ideas, he decides to run for mayor in the hope of improving services and revitalizing a struggling business district.

I was going to create more of a safe haven where humans and wildlife could live and interact together, safely, for both parties.

Being mayor is a great honor, because this small town in which I grew up wants me to be their representative and their leader. He describes the work as having a particularly broad scope of responsibility far beyond his previous work, feeling a strong sense of responsibility for the well-being of city dwellers. He even has the ability to grant pardons for certain offenses, which he announced for every person convicted of non-violent offenses involving cannabis and / or psilocybin mushrooms last year, earning him awards. praise for his groundbreaking work to undo the harms of the war on drugs. .

On the other end of the spectrum of overall ideals, there are always little things that we would talk about too, like a pothole in the street or whatever, he says things that keep him busy.

Bitcoin Valley

While there is no petition to rename the city yet, it is entirely conceivable that the Bitcoin effect will actually affect Cool Valley. Although the city already has a Bitcoin ATM, there are many other opportunities to consider. Some people have asked us to open a mining facility, Stewart Beams, adding that I am trying to get a Bitcoin compatible bank here.

Luckily, Stewart has just joined the advisory board of Midwest BankCenter, a local bank with nearly $ 2 billion in assets. They’ve met for 100 years, but I just had my first board meeting with them about three days ago, he laughs. When asked if they knew him as the Bitcoin guy, Stewart proudly said they know him now!

From his perspective, Stewart sees a sort of cautious optimism in the local banking industry. While it is clear that they want to avoid risk, they are also taking advantage of the potential opportunity for big gains in their investments.

Considering the number of donors, it looks like there will be money left over after distributions to residents. With these funds, one idea that Stewart is exploring is solar lighting and other energy efficiency initiatives at Cool Valley. There is a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt around Bitcoin’s environmental effects, he admits, adding that he wants to set a positive example of the good Bitcoin can do.

With the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus bordering Cool Valley to the south, the city could be a great place to host a Bitcoin conference, or even some sort of tech hub someday. Mayor Stewart agrees, saying I think this could be a really good result which would be super cool.

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