Arizona has enacted Home Bill 2749, a measure that rewrites the state’s unclaimed-property code to cowl cryptocurrencies and creates a “Bitcoin & Digital Assets Reserve” funded solely from deserted digital holdings. Governor Katie Hobbs’ signature makes Arizona the second state after New Hampshire (whose Home Bill 302 grew to become regulation on Might 6) to undertake a statutory framework for holding Bitcoin as a part of public reserves, but the Grand Canyon State is the primary to require that unclaimed tokens be transferred to the state “in their native form,” somewhat than liquidated for money.
Arizona Becomes Second In Bitcoin Race Amongst US States
HB 2749 handed each chambers with bipartisan assist and was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Weninger, the Republican chair of the Home Commerce Committee. In asserting the regulation, Weninger framed the laws as a sensible response to an financial actuality that has already arrived. “Digital assets aren’t the future—they’re the present,” he mentioned.
“This law ensures Arizona doesn’t leave value sitting on the table and puts us in a position to lead the country in how we secure, manage, and ultimately benefit from abandoned digital currency.” He added that the statute “protects property rights, respects ownership, and gives the state tools to account for a new category of value in the economy.”
Underneath the brand new statute, a digital asset is deemed deserted if its proprietor fails to answer three years of outreach. As soon as that threshold is met, the holder should remit the tokens—Bitcoin, Ether or some other cryptocurrency—on to the Arizona Division of Income. The regulation authorizes certified custodians to stake proof-of-stake belongings, gather airdrops and harvest some other on-chain distributions generated by the unclaimed wallets.
All such income flows, along with any seized cash whose homeowners later emerge, are deposited into the Bitcoin and Digital Property Reserve Fund, an account overseen by the State Treasurer and topic to peculiar legislative appropriation. Nothing within the textual content permits an appropriation from the state’s common fund or some other taxpayer-supported pool; in that respect, the measure is “budget-neutral,” as its backers emphasize.
The nonprofit Satoshi Motion Fund, which offered technical help through the legislative drafting, hailed the enactment as a blueprint for different jurisdictions. “Arizona just showed the country how to turn forgotten assets into a fortress against inflation,” mentioned Dennis Porter, the group’s chief government. “With HB 2749, lawmakers converted dormant dollars into digital gold—without touching the taxpayer’s pocket. It’s a win for fiscal responsibility and for every Arizonan who believes in sound money.”
Not Like New Hampshire
Governor Hobbs’ approval comes 4 days after she vetoed Senate Bill 1025, a broader proposal that might have allowed the state to deploy current public funds and seized property into Bitcoin investments. In her veto message, the governor expressed reservations about channeling public cash into “untested assets.”
The narrower scope of HB 2749—restricted to property that the state already holds in belief for lacking homeowners—apparently addressed these issues. Observers now flip to Senate Bill 1373, ready on Hobbs’ desk, which might authorize the Treasurer to allocate as much as 10% of Arizona’s Finances Stabilization Fund to Bitcoin.
Arizona’s transfer follows New Hampshire’s entry into the Bitcoin race simply sooner or later earlier. Notably, the New Hampshire invoice accepted a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve permitting the state to speculate as much as 5% of whole funds.
At press time, BTC traded at $99,348.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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