Municipal staff concluded that the Vancouver Charter does not allow the city to hold bitcoin as a reserve asset.
Vancouver‘s municipal staff has recommended closing the council motion that explored the possibility of making the city “Bitcoin-friendly,” after determining that current regulations do not permit holding bitcoin as municipal reserve assets. The recommendation is contained in a report to the council on pending motions, in which staff stated they had “conclusively determined” that Bitcoin is not “an allowable investment asset.”
Staff cited the Vancouver Charter, the provincial law governing the municipality’s operations and the management of municipal funds, as a regulatory obstacle. British Columbia’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs had already clarified at the time the proposal was launched that municipalities cannot hold financial reserves in digital assets under provincial rules, specifying that the intent of the legislation “is that local government funds not be exposed to undue risk.”
The document also highlights the need to reassess staff resource priorities and align the work with other initiatives already underway within the city, factors cited as additional reasons behind the recommendation.
The matter originated in 2024, when Mayor Ken Sim had championed a motion asking municipal offices to study the possibility of accepting taxes and fees in digital assets and converting part of the city’s financial reserves into bitcoin. Sim had defended the proposal by arguing that bitcoin had been the best-performing asset “over the past 16 years,” contending that it should at least be considered as part of a diversified portfolio.
The only councillor who had opposed the motion, Pete Fry, told local media that he considered the proposal already dead and buried: “I already thought it was dead in the water,” he said. “It was probably good closure to have it mentioned in here, but I don’t even know that it was entirely necessary.”
