Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on Wednesday revealed the city’s worst kept secret — he is running to replace Bill de Blasio as the next mayor of New York City.

The former NYPD officer, who has already raised nearly $2.6 million for a run he has long been teasing, made the announcement via a virtual event to officially toss his hat into the crowded ring for the 2021 mayoral race.

His campaign will  be focused on appealing to more moderate portions of the party, including predominately black precincts in Central Brooklyn and southeastern Queens, experts say.

In a video titled “Rise Up” announcing the bid, Adams said, “I became a police officer to bridge the gap between us, to make us all safer and to take on systemic racism from within.”

In a Zoom live announcement later, Adams said, “Our city is facing a crisis like we have never seen. We have lost nearly 25,000 New Yorkers to this virus and hundreds of thousands of jobs — and I know it far too well.

“And we are still losing…The fight is far from over.”

“Like so many New Yorkers, my struggle started early in life. My mom worked to clean houses and help make ends meet and raise her six children, when we came home from school we didn’t know if we would have food on the table or an eviction notice on the front door. That was real. But we preserved because that’s what New Yorkers do.

“As hard as it was, I still grew up loving this city, these people, these cultures, New York all laid on top of each other, finding common connections in those struggles wherever there are differences.”

Records filed with the city’s Campaign Finance Board show that roughly two dozen people have already filed to run to replace a term-limited de Blasio.

Adams — who retired from the NYPD as a captain — is widely considered one the early frontrunners in the Democratic Party’s June 2021 primary.

“I became a police officer to change the NYPD from the inside, to take on systemic racism from within,” Adams said Wednesday. “Not an easy task, but I believed it was possible and that is why I spent my entire adult life in public service.”

City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a longtime veteran of Manhattan politics, has already raised nearly $2.8 million for his bid, more than anyone else so far.

There are also three former de Blasio administration officials in the race: civil rights attorney and MSNBC commentator Maya Wiley, who was a top aide to Hizzoner during his first term, former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, a veteran of the de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg administrations, and Loree Sutton, a veteran and former head of the city’s Department of Veterans’ Services.

Shaun Donovan, another veteran of the Bloomberg administration and former President Barack Obama’s chief budget writer, has raised nearly $700,000 for his bid so far.

Money isn’t expected to be a problem for Ray McGuire, who was one of the most prominent African American financial executives on Wall Street before he stepped down from his post at Citigroup to jump into the race.

And Councilman Carlos Menchaca recently mounted a bid, too, after killing a controversial development plan in his Sunset Park district.