New Hampshire House Passes State Bitcoin Reserve Bill

A bill proposing the creation of a state Bitcoin reserve was passed by the New Hampshire House of Representatives on Thursday.  The House’s vote on New Hampshire Bill HB302, which if passed would allow the state’s treasury to invest in precious metals and digital assets, held a difference of just 13 votes, with 192 representatives voting for the bill and 179 voting against.  The bill will now move on to the New Hampshire Senate. 

“We’re tied to the U.S. dollar, whether we like it or not, but this would allow us to have the state invest a small portion into this uncorrelated, new asset class,” New Hampshire Representative and bill proposer Keith Ammon previously told Decrypt. Proposed in January, the bill would allow the state’s treasury to allocate up to 5% of the state’s public funds to eligible assets, based on text from the House’s amended bill.

The initial proposal suggested an allocation of up to 10% of the state’s public funds.  Those funds can be used on precious metals like silver or gold, or…”any digital assets with a market capitalization of over $500 billion averaged over the previous calendar year.” Only Bitcoin meets that requirement, as of this writing. New Hampshire’s treasury carried around $3.6 billion in funds as of its most recent annual report, meaning the state could buy up to approximately $181 million worth of precious metals or Bitcoin.

If spent only on crypto’s top asset, at today’s price of $79,755, that would give the Granite State a reserve of around 2,269 BTC. Bitcoin is down about 3.5% on the day, per data from CoinGecko. The bill indicates that digital assets held by the state must be held by a qualified custodian, by the treasurer with a secure custody solution, or via an exchange traded product from a registered investment company.

New Hampshire is one of many states considering Bitcoin reserve bills, some of which have thus far failed to push them through their respective Houses—like in Pennsylvania and Wyoming. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for the United States on March 6.