NYC Mayor Adams to amend financial disclosure after failing to report crypto holdings

Mayor Adams will amend his financial disclosure form to reflect that he owns cryptocurrencies, his spokesman said Thursday after the Daily News brought to his attention that the form doesn’t include info on the Bitcoin and Ethereum the mayor claimed he invested in at the outset of his term.

In the mandatory form, which was filed with the city Conflicts of Interest Board this year, Adams answered “no” to a question asking if he “at the close of 2022″ held stake in “any security (such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, or cryptocurrencies) with a market value of $1,000 or more.”

Adams offered that answer in spite of the fact that he said upon taking office that he would convert his first three paychecks — worth some $30,000 before taxes and other deductions — into Bitcoin and Ethereum, two popular cryptocurrencies. As recently as November 2022, when cryptocurrency markets were crashing, Adams said he still held that cash in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

“My money’s already there,” he told reporters at the time, referring to the three paychecks.

Even though the question on the form specifically mentions crypto, Adams spokesman Fabien Levy said Thursday evening that the mayor didn’t list off his Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings on the disclosure because he thought he only needed to report securities, not currencies.

Levy said the mayor still owns crypto and that he will amend the disclosure to reflect how much those holdings were worth at the end of 2022 in light of The News’ outreach. He declined to immediately specify the value.

Though the mayor apparently misunderstood the form’s instructions, two of his top aides, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks and senior adviser Timothy Pearson, both answered “yes” to the crypto question in their annual financial disclosures. Banks and Pearson, who have been close with Adams since all three served in the NYPD, even specified the dollar amount of their Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings.

Pearson’s form states he owned less than 5% of a Bitcoin stake worth at least $60,000 at the end of 2022. Banks’ form states he held at least $6,000 in Bitcoin and at least $5,000 in Ethereum.

The confusion over Adams’ financial disclosure comes after he spent his first year in office publicly boosting cryptocurrencies — cheerleading that at times has made him a target of criticism.

The way some forms of crypto are produced exacerbates climate change, and environmental advocates have accused Adams of ignoring that reality as he’s vowed to make the city the “crypto capital” of the country and called for loosening state regulations on how it’s traded.

The mayor has also drawn heat from anti-crypto activists for raising campaign cash from crypto industry executives at a fundraiser in the Hamptons last year, as first reported by The News.