The Latest State Effort to Set Up the Investment of Public Money into Cryptocurrency

A bill introduced on Monday in North Carolina, is backed by the state's Speaker of the House Destin Hall.

North Carolina is joining a growing number of states that are considering using public money to invest in cryptocurrency.

A bill introduced on Monday by state House Speaker Destin Hall would allow North Carolina to put up to 10% of its general fund and highway fund into digital assets. The bill defines digital assets as "any digital unit of account, store of value, or medium of exchange that is not legal tender in the United States of America and that is used for investment purposes."

The bill also limits the digital assets that the state can invest in to those that have a market capitalization of at least $10 billion. As of Monday, only bitcoin (BTC) meets that criteria.

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on State Government, Finance, Technology, and Intergovernmental Relations.

Eighteen other states have introduced bills this year that would allow them to invest public money in cryptocurrency. Many of these bills focus on investing portions of state retirement funds in crypto.

Two states — Wisconsin and Michigan — already have crypto in their retirement portfolios for public employees. At least two more states are in serious discussion to join the others, bringing the total to 23 that are devoting close scrutiny to the idea of staking portions of their financial futures on the digital assets sector.

The bulk of this trend took off when President Donald Trump openly embraced a similar idea at the federal level. He issued an executive order in his opening days in office that encouraged his administration to explore the idea of stockpiling crypto assets. There's also legislation in Congress to make that happen, but it hasn't yet moved forward.

Among the states at this point, Utah's is the leading effort, having cleared its state house and moved to the senate there.