By Michael Scott
The state of Utah joins the race to have public funds invest in digital assets. The move follows the Monday, January 20 events when Representative Jordan Teuscher tabled proposals for Blockchain and Digital Innovations as a framework. The H.B. 230 bill seeks a comprehensive framework with lending, staking, and self-custody rights provisions.
Utah Dives into Digital Assets Investment
Teuscher illustrated via an X update profiled the Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments bill as timely amid the national interest wave, enabling the state treasurer to allocate a portion of public funds to digital assets. The lawmaker added that the legislation portrays the commitment to embrace cutting-edge technology and ensure fiscal sovereignty in future finance.
The proposal mandates the treasurer to allocate 10% of investment from the state accounts towards digital assets. The proposal targets allocation from the public state funds.
The provisions of the Teuscher bill empower the treasurer to stake and lend crypto assets that meet the specified conditions. The bill captures a restrictive scope by compelling the investment qualification to be digital assets whose market cap is above $$0.5 trillion over 12 months. Alternatively, the proposal captures the strict stablecoin criteria that feature deploying high-quality liquid assets and dollars alongside regulatory approval from the authorities.
Bill’s Security Requirements
The Utah bill outlines encryption requirements with Section 67-4-20 directing the state to ensure the existence of cryptographic private keys. Such should be exclusively within the encrypted environment, which users need end-to-end encrypted channels to access.
The bill requires the storage of private keys within hardware within two geographically diverse yet designated secure data centers. Additionally, the bill shields the encroachment of individual rights to self-custody. It prohibits the local and state government entities from restricting, impairing, and denying one’s capability to custody via self-hosted and hardware wallets.
Crypto Bills Awaiting Approval
Utah’s move to introduce a bill allowing investment in digital assets mirrors the initiative adopted by other US states. In what turns into a common undertaking, Utah joins the expanding list comprising Texas, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to introduce bills endorsing investment in digital assets. The proposals emerged following President Donald Trump’s promise to establish a national Bitcoin stockpile during his 2024 campaign trail.
Although the state pursuing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserves exceeds 10, each has notable technical variation in its approach to handling digital assets. New Hampshire and Oklahoma’s proposal mandates that the target digital asset meet the $500 billion market cap. Despite the neutral language, compliance with this mandate leaves the two states with Bitcoin as the only digital asset.
Texas Pursuit for Bitcoin Reserves
Texas had, in mid-December, a legislator table bill to establish BTC strategic reserve. Representative Giovanni Capriglione brought HB N. 1598 coincidentally as lawmakers have a similar pursuit at the national level. The bill seeks to build the Bitcoin supply and hold the reserves without liquidation for at least five years.
Texas takes a unique approach that features dual initiatives both in the House and Senate. The latter cap the investment to 1% of the budget surpluses, while the former solely focuses on donations.
The proposals by Ohio and Pennsylvania bills have stalled since their sponsors’ defeat in the past elections. North Dakota is yet to realize meaningful progress as it only has a preliminary resolution encouraging digital asset investment. The enactment of the legislation in Utah would become effective on May 7, elevating Utah among the states pursuing such an initiative.
Wyoming and Massachusetts have joined the list of states pursuing digital asset investments. The idea stamps from the anticipated crypto-friendly approach in the Trump-led administration in his promise to make the US the global crypto capital.
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis leads the Bitcoin reserve idea at the federal level. The lawmaker believes the Bitcoin reserve could supercharge the dollar’s position while granting US leadership in crypto.