Vancouver city staff recommend ending work on mayor’s ‘bitcoin-friendly city’ motion

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is seen in city council chambers in this file photo.

Mayor Ken Sim’s much-publicized effort to make Vancouver a “bitcoin-friendly city” appears to be coming to an end.

In a report coming to city council next week, city staff say they have “conclusively determined that under the Vancouver Charter, bitcoin is not an allowable investment asset for the city" and recommend “this work be concluded.”

The report asks councillors to direct staff to stop, postpone or scale back work on a variety of motions council has made in recent years, with the goal of “freeing up staff capacity” to implement council priorities in 2026.

The document identifies 181 motions that councillors passed between November 2018 and December 2025, and says 103 of them—or about 57 per cent—are considered complete. The remaining 78 are divided into two groups: 51 motions that staff recommends continuing its work to implement and 27 that it recommends working on less.

Sim’s bitcoin motion is among the latter group, with staff recommending the motion be merged with other work and closed.

Formally titled “Preserving of the City’s Purchasing Power Through Diversification of Financial Reserves – Becoming A Bitcoin Friendly City,” Sim’s motion directed staff to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the potential to integrate bitcoin into the city’s financial strategies. That included looking at whether the city could accept payment in bitcoin and whether it should convert a portion of its financial reserves to the cryptocurrency.

At the time Sim made his proposal in December 2024, bitcoin had recently surged above US$100,000 for the first time, and the mayor touted the cryptocurrency as “the number one performing asset on the planet over the last 16 years.”

More recently, bitcoin has fallen close to US$60,000, highlighting the volatility of the asset, which was a major source of criticism of Sim’s motion.

The mayor has described himself as “orange-pilled,” a term bitcoin enthusiasts use to describe their dedication to the asset.

In an interview on a show called Coin Stories, hosted by Natalie Brunell, Sim called bitcoin “the greatest invention in human history,” a claim he repeated to CTV News after council voted in favour of his motion in December 2024.

The staff report heading to council next week recommends councillors approve the proposed reallocation of staff time away from Sim’s bitcoin motion and the other 26 council directives identified for de-prioritization.

“As with all public sector organisations, the work demands on city staff tend to be additive, which is to say that over time, far more work is added to the city staff’s workload than is taken away or adjusted downward,” the report reads. “The pressure of increased work arises as social, economic and cultural circumstances change, and as new issues and opportunities arise.”

Vancouver’s municipal staff is also shrinking as a result of the property tax freeze Sim and his ABC party approved in this year’s budget.

The city is expecting to reduce its workforce by around 400 full-time equivalent positions, two-thirds of them unionized, as a result of Sim’s “zero means zero” budget.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Isabella Zavarise