Texas is now legally authorized to build his own Bitcoin reserve that is financed with taxpayers dollars before the federal government takes comparable action.
Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 21 on Saturday, a law that explicitly allows the state to buy and keep Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies.
The measure passed the Texas House and the Senate with wide margins, which enables the state -computer to build the reserve immediately.
While the Trump administration has recently announced the formation of a ‘strategic Bitcoin reserve’, the two policy rules differ greatly in content and intention.
Strategic autonomy or symbolic movement?
Backers of the bill in Texas, including Lieutenant -Gouverneur Dan Patrick and State Senator Charles Schwertner, framed it as a hedge against inflation and a way to strengthen the identity of Texas as a national leader in crypto.
“Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and fixed delivery make it an ideal value of value for the long term,” said Schwertner during the debate on the floor. Proponents also point to the ten -year performance record of Bitcoin and the growing institutional acceptance as reasons for assigning a small but symbolic part of the rainy day funds of the state.
The Comptroller’s Office will keep and manage the Texas ReserveWith input from a five -member advisory board. Financing for the reserve can come from legislative loans, investment income and private donations.
It is crucial that the law gives the state authority to actively buy and manage Bitcoin, including keeping it as an active and possibly throwing it strategically away.
Some proponents claim that future returns can be generated by means of revenue mechanisms such as deportation or loans, although the account itself does not explicitly authorize those functions.
Federal efforts are more limited.
The executive order of the Trump government that creates a federal “strategic Bitcoin reserve” leads to comparisons, but the two initiatives have little in common than the name.
The federal Bitcoin reserve is fully built from Bitcoin seized in criminal investigations. According to the conditions of the executive order of 6 March, these assets are now prohibited for liquidation, but they cannot be expanded unless the purchases are “budget neutral”. That means that the federal government will not quickly buy new bitcoin; It just freezes what it has already seized.
Unlike Texas, the federal Bitcoin Reserve does not have an independent advisory board or a mandate to generate returns in its participations. Guardianship remains with the Treasury Department and US Marshals Service and Supervision remains largely internal.
How much bitcoin can Texas buy?
With its Economic Stabilization Fund, better known as the ‘Rainy Day Fund’, it would be expected to keep between $ 24 billion and $ 28.5 billion in 2025, Texas can allocate hundreds of millions of Bitcoin purchases without jeopardizing its tax position.
At the current market prices, a allocation of 1% (around $ 240- $ 285 million) could yield the state around 2,400 to 2,800 BTC. A more aggressive allocation of 5% would yield up to 14,000 coins, making Texas one of the largest sovereign holders of Bitcoin worldwide.
For comparison: the federal government currently has around 218,000 BTC, based on recent blockchain analyzes, although everything came from epileptic seizures instead of purchases.
What happens afterwards
With SB 21 Now Law, it is expected that the office of the Texas Comptroller will outline the implementation procedures towards the end of the tax year. In the meantime, the accompanying legislation (HB 4488) will protect the reserve against being swept in the state treasury for non -related use.
While Washington and Austin pursue different paths when handling Bitcoin, Texas can now become the first American state to hold the cryptocurrency, not because it had to be, but because it chose it.