- Many states have moved forward with bills to establish Bitcoin strategic reserves.
- The shift belies a bull case for Bitcoin and crypto’s fortunes in the US more broadly.
While the US federal government considers its options on a Bitcoin strategic reserve, 21 states in the union have already made moves towards establishing their own.
That’s according to recent research from VanEck, which analysed lawmakers’ various bills.
VanEck sees as much as $25 billion in Bitcoin purchases.
“This figure is both optimistic and conservative,” analysts Nathan Frankovitz and Matthew Sigel wrote. While “the probability of each of these proposals passing is low,” and “our estimates are based on the upper bounds of each bill,” some bills don’t provide guidance on how much Bitcoin they could acquire, so VanEck attributed zero to those.
Also, the list excludes pension-only allocations already made in states like Michigan and Wisconsin, they said.
Much like Michael Saylor’s feverish bidding via Strategy, totaling about $31 billion, the states' reserves would drive Bitcoin’s price into new all-time highs.
The move comes as the US federal government mulls whether to establish its own reserve. Other countries may make similar moves.
“Competition among nation states, particularly unaligned nations, those with large sovereign wealth funds, or even those adversarial to the United States, will drive the adoption of strategies to mine or otherwise acquire Bitcoin,” wrote Galaxy Research analysts in December.
Strategic asset reserves in the US would allow governments, whether state or federal, to diversify their reserves beyond the standard US Treasury assets.
They also hold the potential of getting ahead of the curve geopolitically, if Bitcoin strategic reserves become relatively standardised.
And some believe Bitcoin is an inflation hedge due to its capped 21 million supply.
VanEck lists the below 21 states, their potential investments and how many tokens that translates to, in order from largest investment:
- Arizona ($8.74B, 91,657 BTC)
- Florida ($3.02B, 31,694 BTC)
- North Carolina ($2.63B, 27,573 BTC)
- Pennsylvania ($2.36B, 24,736 BTC)
- New Mexico ($2.1B, 22,076 BTC)
- Missouri ($1.71B, 17,916 BTC)
- South Dakota ($1.67B, 17,492 BTC)
- Oklahoma ($1.47B, 15,379 BTC)
- West Virginia ($1.1B, 11,536 BTC)
- Massachusetts ($883.1M, 9,262 BTC)
- Wyoming ($813M, 8,526 BTC)
- Texas ($182.9M, 1,918 BTC)
- Iowa ($273.6M, 2,869 BTC)
- New Hampshire ($211.63M, 2,220 BTC)
- Michigan ($398.26M, 4,147 BTC)
- Montana ($50M, 524 BTC)
- Illinois (N/A)
- Kentucky (N/A)
- Maryland (N/A)
- North Dakota (unspecified)
- Ohio (multiple bills)
Andrew Flanagan is a Markets Correspondent for DL News. Got a tip? Reach out to aflanagan@dlnews.com.