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- A house committee in Utah has approved a bill allowing the state to allocate funds to invest in Bitcoin and other digital assets, and it could take effect in three months.
- Utah joins a heated race where each state is out to become the crypto pioneer; just yesterday, an Arizona Senate Committee approved a bill to start a Bitcoin reserve.
The state of Utah in the US wants to become the country’s crypto hub, with a House Committee recently approving a bill that would permit the state’s treasury to invest in digital assets.
The bill, titled ‘Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments bill (H.B. 230),’ was introduced just over a week ago by state representative Jordan Teuscher, as we reported. This week, the Utah House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee approved the bill, paving the way for it to pass to the House floor for debate and voting. If it sails through the floor, it will head to the Senate, which will vote on it and pass it off to the governor for his signature.
The bill, in its first draft, allowed the state to invest up to 10% of its reserves in cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and stablecoins as long as they met some criteria, which include having a sufficiently high market capitalization and regulatory approvals.
However, the bill has been revised, reducing the maximum allocation from 10% to 5% to cut down the state’s exposure to crypto volatility. Besides investment, the revisions also extended to crypto mining provisions to provide more regulatory clarity.
The Utah bill became the latest by a US state seeking to dive into crypto to align with Donald Trump’s pro-crypto push. However, no other state has passed such legislation, and this is where Utah could take the lead. The state’s legislators believe the bill can be passed and signed into law by early May.
“While Utah is the 11th state to introduce similar legislation, we will be the first to pass it. Utah continues to lead the nation in blockchain and digital innovation,” Teuscher commented while presenting the bill.
Will Utah Spark a National Crypto Revolution
Utah joins states like New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which all want to establish Bitcoin reserves in line with Trump’s national BTC reserve initiative. The new American president is the most bullish on crypto to date and pledged to invest billions to make the US the global crypto capital. This includes expanding the mining sector and establishing the reserve.
Most recently, a Senate committee in Arizona approved a bill establishing a BTC reserve, forwarding it to the rest of the Senate for debate and a vote. The bill proposes that 10% of the state’s holdings be in crypto and allows pension funds to invest in crypto.
The BTC reserve revolution could be the biggest tailwind for the crypto this year. In 2024, BTC recorded its best year yet, with ETFs and Trump’s election as the main drivers. However, a BTC reserve in the US at a national and state level could be much more bullish and potentially push hundreds of billions to the top crypto. Some market experts like Adam Back believe these reserves could push BTC to seven figures.
Meanwhile, BTC trades at $102,340 at press time, dipping slightly over the past day as the broader market capitalization slid 1% to hit $3.47 trillion.
