Texas establishes itself as the first state to adopt bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset through direct public funding.
The state has become the first in the United States to create a publicly funded and fully autonomous strategic bitcoin reserve. This past weekend, Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 21 into law.
Unlike Arizona and New Hampshire, which passed similar legislation without providing direct funding, Texas initially allocated $10 million to finance the state reserve, according to a report by Coindesk.
The reserve will operate entirely separately from the state’s main treasury, as established by SB 21. The management of the fund will be entrusted to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, supported by an advisory committee made up of three experts in digital asset investments.
Only cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization exceeding $500 billion over the past 12 months will be eligible for inclusion — a threshold currently met only by Bitcoin.
The fund can be financed not only through direct purchases but also via forks, airdrops, investment profits, or public cryptocurrency donations. Transparency will be ensured through a public biennial report detailing the reserve’s performance and holdings.
The primary goal of the reserve is to strengthen the state’s financial resilience by serving as a hedge against inflation.
Governor Abbott also signed House Bill 4488, a complementary measure that protects the strategic bitcoin reserve from being incorporated into the state’s general revenue fund, thereby safeguarding the fund’s integrity and autonomy.
