“To me, it would seem almost crazy not to consider Bitcoin as a potential asset to hold given how well its performed,” said Rep. Jordan Teuscher.
That's exactly what Utah lawmakers plan to do with a new bill, House Bill 230, sponsored by Representative Jordan Teuscher and Senator Kirk Cullimore, which would allow the state treasurer to invest public funds in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.
“It is a bill that establishes important rights for those that own or mine digital assets, while at the same time pointing to the rest of the nation that Utah is innovative and taking advantage of new technologies,” said Rep. Teuscher.
This bill isn’t the first of its kind. Rep. Teuscher said around 15 other states have similar bills pending. The bill also doesn’t specify any digital asset for investment, but includes a provision that it must have a market cap of more than $500 billion, making Bitcoin the only asset that qualifies currently. Rep. Tuescher explained this bill as an investment for the government of Utah.
“I think what we look at here is this is a long-term investment play. This is not playing daily trading of crypto on the market. It's an asset class that we're seeing investments for all the major investment players.”
This bill would allow the state treasurer to invest about 5% of public funds, amounting to around sixty million dollars as a cap. With public investment on the table, it raises a key question: what is cryptocurrency?
“The idea here is Bitcoin is, at this point, become a sort of important macroeconomic asset. It's sort of the 21st century version of gold, but it's digital gold. It's like gold that you could email. And it has properties that are very different than other types of assets,” said Zachary Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
“I think this bill does a good job of saying, listen, don't discriminate against Bitcoin miners as a consumer of energy. Bitcoin miners are just data centers similar to the data centers that train AI. They have all sorts of possible potential good externalities for the grid and for the environment, and if you're concerned about carbon emissions, you should regulate those carbon emissions,”
Cryptocurrency poses energy consumption concerns but Shapiro argues that Bitcoin mining is no different from other energy-intensive industries.
This bill moved between the House and Senate with amendments and now awaits final approval from the House, possibly heading to the Governor next.
