Appearing Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock on Thursday introduced the members of the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee, a newly created physique tasked with guiding the state’s administration, custody, and valuation of bitcoin holdings.
The committee was established underneath Senate Invoice 21, handed by the 89th Texas Legislature and signed into legislation on June 22, 2025 — making Texas one of the crucial outstanding states within the nation to maneuver ahead with an operational bitcoin reserve.
“The Legislature gave the Comptroller’s office a clear responsibility to administer the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and that work must be done with transparency, security and strong financial controls,” Hancock stated in a press release Thursday. “This advisory committee brings together the kind of expertise needed to help the state carry out that direction carefully, responsibly and in the best interest of Texas taxpayers.”
The five-member committee — which incorporates Hancock himself — attracts on a broad vary of economic, authorized, and digital asset experience.
Laurie Dotter, who chairs the Funding Advisory Board for the Staff Retirement System of Texas, brings greater than 35 years of funding and governance expertise.
Jamie McAvity, founder and CEO of Cormint Knowledge Methods, is a nationally acknowledged bitcoin miner working a 130-megawatt facility in Fort Stockton with high effectivity rankings.
Authorized scholar Carla Reyes, a professor at Southern Methodist College, presently serves on the federal Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee’s Innovation Advisory Committee and has testified earlier than Congress on blockchain coverage.
Rounding out the panel is Gary A. Vecchiarelli, CPA, president and CFO of CleanSpark, who constructed that firm’s institutional-grade BTC buying and selling desk, yield methods, and digital asset governance framework.
The workplace additionally issued an RFP searching for a professional crypto custodian to assist its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which presently holds about $10 million in publicity by way of the iShares Bitcoin Belief (IBIT), with companies protecting safe custody, liquidity, and asset administration.
The transfer alerts a deliberate transition from ETF-based publicity to straight custodied Bitcoin inside 60 days of contract execution, reflecting a shift towards full possession, institutional-grade safety, and broader crypto asset assist over time.
Washington’s personal Bitcoin reserve push hits hurdles
Texas’s transfer comes because the federal authorities continues working to solidify its personal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — a course of that has confirmed extra difficult than initially anticipated.
President Trump signed an government order on March 6, 2025, directing the Treasury Division to determine a reserve seeded with BTC already held by way of felony and civil asset forfeitures — an estimated 328,372 BTC, making the U.S. the most important identified state holder of BTC on the earth.
The order explicitly bars the Treasury from promoting these bitcoin.
Nonetheless, the trail to a proper, codified reserve has confronted delays. In January 2026, Patrick Witt, Government Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Asunits, acknowledged “obscure legal provisions” nonetheless wanted to be overcome.
By Might 2026, Witt signaled {that a} main authorized breakthrough had been reached, saying an announcement on the reserve was imminent.
Laws to make the reserve everlasting can be advancing in Congress. The American Reserves Modernization Act — co-sponsored by Senator Cynthia Lummis and Consultant Nick Begich — would authorize the Treasury to buy as much as 200,000 BTC per yr for 5 years, with holdings locked for no less than 20 years.
If handed, the Treasury’s first open-market Bitcoin buy is projected for This fall 2026.
