When Mayor Eric Adams announced that he'd take his first three paychecks in cryptocurrency—around $30,000 split evenly between Bitcoin and Etherum—Hell Gate started tracking the mayor's digital currency holdings.
Two years later, City Hall wouldn't tell us if the mayor still has all of his crypto (his most recent financial disclosure form was from 2022, and states that he had between $5,000 and $54,999.99 in Bitcoin).
But our mayor prizes loyalty, so we'll assume that he stuck with them for the purposes of this blog post. To fully understand how he's doing now, we must go back to 2022, when Adams first dove headfirst into crypto.
This was the beginning of a deeply perilous time for blockchain-based money—Bitcoin and other digital currencies were about to begin a long, downward slump that would ultimately leave countless crypto holders broke, several companies insolvent, and wunderkid Sam Bankman-Fried at the Metropolitan Detention Center. The New York Times estimated that $1 trillion was wiped away from the market.
At first, the mayor was seeing some modest returns—in early May 2022, he'd made just under $500 on his investment. But then, the long winter began. Later that month, he'd lost around 25 percent of his paychecks by investing in cryptocurrencies.
By June 2022, things were grim—he was down 55%. By November 2022, down 58 percent.
It was not pretty.
And that's around when the mayor bottomed out… because his cryptocurrency holdings were about to begin a heroic turnaround.
In December of 2023, he had only lost 13 percent of his paychecks.
At the dawn of the new year, Adams was in the black.
And now? He's an absolute winner.
The mayor, Hell Gate can proudly announce, has HODL'd. He has WAGMI'd. He has uhhhh….made money? His portfolio is now up 36 percent or roughly $10,000. The cryptocurrency sector is roaring back.
But again, that's only if the mayor actually held on to his cryptocurrency.
Hell Gate reached out to the Adams administration to both congratulate the mayor on his prudent and savvy investment strategy and to get a comment on the recovery of the cryptocurrency sector. They did not respond to our requests, which we can only interpret as the mayor being both calm and silently cool in crypto victory.
Sooo…in the absence of any further information….Congrats, Mayor Adams! You have HODL'd!!!!!! WE ARE TRULY ALL GOING TO MAKE IT!
You have nothing else to worry about!!!
