Vancouver "Bitcoin Reserve" Dream Shattered! City Hall Staff "This Reason" Suggests Withdraw Proposal

Regarding Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s earlier proposal to establish a “Bitcoin Strategic Reserve,” city officials have assessed that Bitcoin does not qualify as a legally investable asset category for the municipal government. Therefore, they recommend that the city council withdraw the related proposal.

This motion, titled “Maintaining City Purchasing Power Through Diversified Financial Reserves: Moving Towards a Bitcoin-Friendly City,” was introduced by Mayor Ken Sim in November 2024. It advocated allocating part of the city’s financial reserves into Bitcoin to counteract traditional currency volatility, depreciation, and inflation pressures, while maintaining financial stability and purchasing power.

In December 2024, the Vancouver City Council voted to approve this motion and instructed city officials to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a Bitcoin reserve, with a requirement to submit a related research report by the first quarter of 2025. However, the evaluation results were only publicly disclosed for the first time this week.

In the report, city officials stated: “According to the Vancouver Charter, Bitcoin is not classified as a legally investable asset type for the municipal government, and therefore, we recommend terminating related research and subsequent work.”

In addition to legal issues, city officials also cited the need to “reallocate internal human resources” and “align with other municipal priority projects” as reasons for withdrawing the motion.

In fact, early in the policy discussion, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs of British Columbia explicitly stated that local governments, including Vancouver, are legally prohibited from including cryptocurrencies in their financial reserves due to concerns over “unnecessary risks.”