Texas Governor Greg Abbott fueled new discussion this week with a news post from his official X account. The piece addressed the legislative push to add a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) to the state and mentioned Abbott’s years-long passion about digital assets. Many in the crypto community thought his post indicated he would sign the bill should it make it to his desk.
Abbott has remained a strong defender of digital assets and has signed numerous bills in their favor in the past years. He has also facilitated the arrival in Texas of bitcoin mining firms as part of his efforts to promote economic activity in the state.
The administration in his government supports the belief that digital currency businesses can bring financial and infrastructure advantages to the people of Texas.
The governor has stated that Bitcoin mining can assist in stabilizing Texas’s electricity grid, which has struggled in the recent past. An uptick in statewide energy usage and devastating weather have driven the majority of the issues. By favoring mining operations with the capacity to rapidly ramp up or down, Abbott thinks digital sectors might provide flexible solutions to the problem.
Texas lawmakers push forward with state Bitcoin reserve
Legislators in Texas took the first step towards establishing a Texas-run Bitcoin reserve through a newly introduced bill. The legislation cleared a significant legislative milestone and is being sent back to the Senate in order to get the final approval of the suggested changes. Once the Senate gives the nod to the amendments, the bill will directly move to Governor Abbott for final consideration.
The law will permit the state comptroller to buy Bitcoin using any excess General Revenue funds remaining unspent. Officials will then monitor those purchases through existing processes that handle the state’s gold reserves. However, they won’t take any action until they write procurement regulations and finalize contracts to secure storage.
The legislation also incorporates a market cap criterion to restrict the inclusion to assets worth more than $500 billion over two years. Current assets do not fulfill this criterion with the exception of Bitcoin, leaving other widely used cryptocurrencies out.
If Texas does adopt the Bitcoin reserve, it will join the handful of states holding digital currency assets.
