Vancouver’s Bitcoin plan backed by Mayor Ken Sim is, right now, officially being shelved. City staff have recommended dropping the motion Sim introduced back in December 2024 — the one that asked them to look into converting a portion of the city’s financial reserves into cryptocurrency. Staff concluded that under the Vancouver Charter, Bitcoin is simply not a legally allowable investment asset, and so Vancouver’s Bitcoin plan is set to be closed out entirely. The Bitcoin reserve idea, which also explored letting residents pay taxes and fees in crypto, ran into legal walls almost immediately after council passed it.
Vancouver’s Bitcoin Plan Faces Legal Barriers And Policy Pushback
What the Staff Report Actually Says
The report, heading to council on March 10, states that staff conclusively determined that Bitcoin is not an allowable investment for the city. And this, really, was not news to everyone involved. B.C.’s Municipal Affairs Ministry had already said as much back in December 2024, when it told CBC News:
“The intent of the legislation is that local government funds are not exposed to undue risk.”
Vancouver’s Bitcoin investment proposal also drew skepticism from analysts following the story closely. Kevin Lee, chief business officer at crypto exchange Gate, told Decrypt:
“The legal and treasury-related barriers were reportedly already understood from the outset, so the decision to end the process does not come as a real surprise.”
Dominick John, analyst at Zeus Research, went further on why Vancouver cryptocurrency reserves — or any municipal Bitcoin push — faces a structural problem:
“Demand for Bitcoin isn’t the constraint, public balance sheet mandates are. Municipal treasuries are structured for capital preservation, which keeps assets like Bitcoin outside the reserve toolkit. Until legislation, accounting treatment, and custody frameworks evolve, cities like Vancouver will remain stuck at the study.”
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Ken Sim Steps Back From Vancouver’s Bitcoin Reserve Push
Ken Sim’s Bitcoin plan had been anything but quiet. Sim went on over ten podcasts promoting Vancouver cryptocurrency reserves and calling Bitcoin “the greatest invention ever in human history.” The mayor himself described the Ken Sim Bitcoin plan as “a hill that I’m willing to die on” — though, at the time of writing, that hill looks a lot more like a dead end. Kevin Lee also noted that the Vancouver Bitcoin plan “appeared to reflect Mayor Ken Sim’s personal pro-Bitcoin vision as much as a practical municipal finance initiative.”
When CBC News asked Sim about the Vancouver Bitcoin plan in January 2026, the tone was noticeably different:
“It’s super important. And right now, public safety, affordability — those are two big things that we have to work on.”
Councillor Pete Fry, the only vote against the original motion, said the news barely surprised him:
“I already thought it was dead in the water.”
The Bitcoin plan now heads to a council vote on March 10. The push for a Vancouver Bitcoin reserve or any form of Bitcoin investment through municipal funds appears, also, to be over — at least under current law.