Wyoming and Massachusetts joined the growing number of US states that may soon vote to create this state Bitcoin Reserves, as representatives from both states introduced draft legislation supporting the initiative on Friday.

In Wyoming, a group of five Republican lawmakers introduced A invoice This would allow the state treasurer to invest public funds in Bitcoin, but not in other digital assets.

In recent weeks, other states have introduced bills that are slightly more permissive, which would allow states in some cases to invest in stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies whose market capitalization has exceeded $500 billion — although Bitcoin is the only asset that meets that requirement. As of the time of this writing. requirements.

Wyoming's bill is also more restrictive in another area: It would only allow its treasurer to invest 3% of a certain state fund in bitcoin. Proposed legislation in other states, e.g Pennsylvania and Oklahomainvestments in digital assets will be allowed to constitute 10% of corresponding public funds.

Meanwhile, in deep blue Massachusetts, the state's only Republican senator, A invoice On Friday, he proposed creating a strategic reserve for Bitcoin. This law, introduced by Peter Durant, is more lenient than Wyoming's law, and would allow up to 10% of a Massachusetts rainy day fund to be made up of bitcoin or any form of digital asset.

Almost at this point five Legislatures in all US states are soon set to consider whether to invest public funds in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Each such proposal was introduced in the wake of Donald Trump's re-election in November by Republicans.

Trump, who has long been a cryptocurrency skeptic, suddenly... Change course On the campaign trail this year after being a popular critic of Bitcoin in the past. In July, on stage at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, he called on the federal government to create its own conference Bitcoin stock.

The chorus of such initiatives is rapidly gaining momentum. On Friday afternoon, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly called for the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve in the United States for the first time.

"“The next global arms race will be in the digital economy, not space,” Armstrong said at one company. Blog post. “Bitcoin could be as fundamental to the global economy as gold, and will become an essential element of national security in a world where Bitcoin holdings could shift the balance of power between nation-states.”

Modified by Andrew Hayward