Did NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani announce a bitcoin tax on all New Yorkers just days after the Nov. 4 election? No, that's not true: This is a made-up story with no verifiable details. The text in the post appears to be AI-generated. There are no legitimate news reports about Mamdani announcing a bitcoin tax.
The story originated in a November 6, 2025 post on X.com account @dotkrueger (archived here) where it looked like a news story with a headline that read "MAYOR-ELECT MAMDANI ANNOUNCES "BITCOIN JUSTICE ACT," IMPOSING MANDATORY BITCOIN TAX ON ALL NEW YORKERS." It opened with a story where Mamdani's name was misspelled "Mandani":
NEW YORK CITY -- Mayor-elect Zohran Mandani unveiled his boldest initiative yet: a citywide Bitcoin tax, requiring every New Yorker to contribute to what he called "the collective rebalancing of digital wealth." "Too many Bitcoins are hiding in cold wallets," Mandani said during a jubilant press conference at Union Square. "We're bringing that liquidity back to the people -- one confiscation at a time."
This is what the post looked like on X.com at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from x.com/dotkrueger.)
The post claims "Mandani" made the announcement "during a jubilant press conference at Union Square." Mamdani held a press conference at Union Square on November 5, 2025, but a transcript from the event posted on DRM News YouTube account (archived here) shows no mention of "bitcoin" during his remarks:
Mamdani's official website ZohranforNYC.com (archived here) did not include any announcements about a bitcoin tax as of publication date, including in the "Paying for Our Agenda" section.
While the format of the post mimics a legitimate news article, Lead Stories ran the text on the Facebook post through AI detection tools on GPTZero.me and the results said that snippet was 100% likely written by AI, as this screenshot shows:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from GPTZero.me.)
There are no credible news reports about Mamdani annoucing a bitcoin tax on New Yorkers as of publication date. Lead Stories searched Google News' index of thousands of news websites and found no reports of Mamdani announcing a bitcoin tax on New Yorkers. Similarly, the Yahoo! News index of partner news sites and news services showed no matching news reports of the mayor-elect announcing a bitcoin tax.
