Strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation is reportedly the subject of preliminary discussions among Texan lawmakers, according to nonprofit advocacy group, the Satoshi Action Fund (SAF).
In a Nov. 21 talk at the North American Blockchain Summit in Texas covered by Cointelegraph, CEO of SAF Dennis Porter said the group had spoken with a lawmaker who’s just “started conversations to introduce strategic Bitcoin legislation” in Texas.
“The implications of the State of Texas moving forward with strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation cannot be understated,” Porter said.
Porter said the impact of having a strategic Bitcoin BTCUSD reserve in Texas would be significant, as the state has the world’s eighth-largest economy with a GDP of $2.4 trillion in 2022, according to the Texas comptroller.
There has already been some movement on this concept on the larger stage. US Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill in July to establish a United States Bitcoin strategic reserve, which if approved, would create a Bitcoin fund to hedge against the national debt.
Pennsylvania lawmakers have also introduced legislation in the state’s House of Representatives to permit its treasury to hold up to 10% in Bitcoin on its balance sheet as a tool to protect against inflation.
Still, Porter says that beyond just protection against inflation, strategic Bitcoin reserves at the national and state levels would help secure Bitcoin mining in the US.
“Bitcoin mining runs on razor-thin margins, and all it would take is a couple of outside actors, Russia, China, saying, hey, you know what, let’s just suppress the price of Bitcoin long enough, and we’ll just kill off all the American Bitcoin mining in this country,” he said.
“So a great way for us to protect ourselves from outside influence, undue influence from our foreign adversaries, is to be in the market buying and selling Bitcoin, acting as a shock absorber for all the incredible Bitcoin miners that we have here in this country,” Porter said.
According to Porter, a Bitcoin reserve is comparable to other historical decisions that have helped shape the modern US, such as the Louisiana Purchase and acquiring Florida and Alaska.
During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump made many crypto-related promises, including establishing a “strategic Bitcoin stockpile.”
Since then, the idea has spread. Porter said there has been “incredible momentum built for this issue,” and there is a race on to see who can pass strategic reserve legislation first, a stance he also took on X before the event.
“We are very excited to have that race, a race where no matter who wins, all of us win, right?” Porter said.
On the international stage, Polish presidential candidate Sławomir Mentzen vowed to create a Bitcoin reserve in a Nov. 17 statement to X if he wins next year’s election.