A bill to create a strategic bitcoin reserve that could act as a test bed for the US Treasury was introduced in the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday.
At an X Spaces event Thursday, Republican state representative Giovanni Capriglione stated that the proposed bill would allow the state to begin creating a strategic bitcoin reserve by taking bitcoin donations, fees, and taxes that would be held for at least five years.
According to the Satoshi Action Fund, a nonprofit bitcoin advocacy group that collaborated with Capriglione on the measure, the Texas law seeks to establish the state as a pioneer in bitcoin innovation while also strengthening its budgetary stability.
“Probably the biggest enemy of our investments is inflation,” Capriglione stated. “A strategic bitcoin reserve, investing in bitcoin, would be a win-win for the state.”
“I just filed the bill … entitled ‘An act relating to the establishment of a bitcoin reserve within the state treasury of Texas and the management of cryptocurrencies by governmental entities,'” he further added.
Texas has the biggest concentration of bitcoin miners in the nation, in addition to having the second-largest economy in the United States and the eighth-largest in the world. It is hoped that some of them will start using cryptocurrency to pay their taxes. There is no direct bitcoin buying plan in the original proposal.
It’s not quite certain that the United States will create a bitcoin reserve, or if it does, it will be the first. Regardless of whether the U.S. implements it or not, the concept might serve as a favorable market stimulant in the upcoming year and encourage other countries to do the same.
John Todaro of Needham said that while it is “unlikely to occur, it helps get animal spirits back into the market.” He also said that it is “unlikely to drive material price gains, as we do not expect the U.S. government will purchase bitcoin in any meaningful capacity, but it’s an item that drives excitement and optimism.”
In the meantime, a number of governments are eager to be the ones to map this new area. According to Dennis Porter, the CEO of Satoshi Action Fund, talks are in progress in up to ten additional states and four nations to offer similar legislation in the upcoming months. Pennsylvania was the first state to introduce a strategic bitcoin reserve measure in November.
Porter, who collaborated with Capriglione on the bill draft, has also helped legislators in other states with laws pertaining to bitcoin.
Laws have been passed in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Montana, and Arkansas to safeguard the rights to mining, self-custody, node operation, and peer-to-peer transactions.
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The Pennsylvania bill is the 30th bill introduction in which the Satoshi Action Fund has been involved.
Speaking to guests at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July, Trump declared that “it will be the policy of my administration to keep 100 percent of all bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires in the future… as a core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile.” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, unveiled her plan to establish a national strategic bitcoin reserve at the same ceremony.