Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs strategic Bitcoin reserve bill into law

Texas became the third state in the U.S. to pass legislation establishing a statewide strategic Bitcoin reserve after the state's governor, Greg Abbott, signed SB 21 into law on Saturday. 

Texas follows Arizona and New Hampshire in establishing a state-run Bitcoin reserve fund, although Texas is the first to create a stand-alone, publicly-funded reserve. The fund was established outside the usual state treasury and will be managed by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Glenn Hegar. 

"We can buy land, we can buy gold; I think the state of Texas should have the option of evaluating the best performing asset over the last 10 years," the bill's author, State Senator Charles Schwertner, said in February. 

Abbott also signed HB 4488, a bill that insulates the Bitcoin reserve, alongside other state funds, from the state treasury’s periodic ‘fund-sweeps’ to general revenue. The bill also guarantees the reserve’s legal existence even if no bitcoin has been purchased by next summer.

Texas Blockchain Council founder and President Lee Bratcher previously told The Block that he expected Abbott to sign the bill and predicted that the state would invest tens of millions of dollars into the cryptocurrency. 

"My sense is that it will be in the tens of millions of dollars, which, while it sounds significant, is a very modest amount, for a state the size of Texas," Bratcher said. "It's still early and the comptroller is going to utilize proven investing standards to determine how much to buy, when to purchase, and that's really outside of the hands of anybody except the professionals at the comptroller's office."

Neither bill appeared in a press release highlighting 16 "critical" pieces of legislation published by Abbott's office; Abbott signed 334 bills on Saturday.