Texas Goes Full Hodl: Lone Star State Now Hoards Bitcoin Like Digital Gold
Move over, gold reserves—Texas just joined the Bitcoin bull run. The state's treasury is stacking sats alongside Ohio and Florida in a growing institutional embrace of crypto.
Why it matters: When red states start treating BTC like a strategic asset, Wall Street's 'digital tulips' narrative starts looking shaky. Politicians finally realizing what retail investors knew in 2017—just without the Lambo memes.
The fine print: No word yet on whether they'll pay taxes in BTC or if the state pension fund starts yield farming. One thing's certain—when the next crypto winter hits, Texas won't be selling at the bottom like your average panicked trader.
Public Bitcoin Reserves
While Texas comes in third after New Hampshire and Arizona in exploring crypto frameworks, it is the first U.S. state to commit public funds with explicit legal protections. The reserve cannot be dissolved by future legislatures, either, even if no Bitcoin purchases happen immediately.
New Hampshire was the first to authorize public investment in Bitcoin, but it kept those assets inside the state treasury without creating a separate reserve or long-term legal protections.
Arizona, meanwhile, created a structured fund for managing unclaimed crypto, but it didn't commit any new public funds or pursue active investment.
The legal protections for the Texas bill fall under House Bill 4488, which enables Senate Bill 21 to work as intended and ensures the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve won't be automatically abolished at the end of the legislative session, as would normally happen to new state funds.
HB 4488 legally exempts SB21 from the default sweep and protects its dedicated revenue and interest from being redirected into general state funds. In effect, it guarantees the long-term survival and financial independence of the Bitcoin reserve authorized by SB 21.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
