Arizona, Colorado, & Wyoming Push Legislation Supporting Cryptocurrency

Lawmakers in Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming have all recently taken legislative action that seeks to further support cryptocurrency.

On Thursday, the Arizona Senate passed a bill that would allow residents to pay income taxes using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This implementation has practical significance, allowing the use of cryptocurrencies as a payment option in a state revenue system legitimizes them as an everyday alternative payment medium.

A provision in the bill mandates that the cryptocurrency payments be exchanged for fiat currency within 24 hours. This provision seeks to address the volatility of cryptocurrency and mitigate state revenue concerns.

Republican Arizona State Representative Jeff Weninger, who co-sponsored the bill, said he wants Arizona to be at the forefront of technological innovation. He told Fox News:

“It’s one of a litany of bills that we’re running that is sending a signal to everyone in the United States, and possibly throughout the world, that Arizona is going to be the place to be for blockchain and digital currency technology in the future.”

Consideration by the Arizona House of Representatives will be the next step for this bill.

In Colorado, a bill was introduced in the Senate proposing the use of blockchain for governmental data security. Senate Bill 86 seeks to use the blockchain ledger feature for its ability to securely record transactions. The bill aims to “control functionality, track transactions, verify identities, support uniformity, resist tampering, enable logistical control for large numbers of participants, protect privacy, and support accountability and auditing.”

Sumana Nallapati, Colorado’s secretary of technology and state chief information officer told StateScoop:

“In Colorado, we try to be a leader in any technology that can transform and enable better government. To be an early adopter of blockchain, our hope is that it will allow Colorado to shape the industry by offering lessons learned, creating jobs, and providing better services to our customers.”

Legislators in Wyoming have introduced two bills, House Bills 19 and 70, that would limit regulatory control over cryptocurrency trading.

Coinbase, the most widely used buying and selling cryptocurrency platform, suspended its services in Wyoming a couple of years ago. Many other platforms followed their decision because the states regulatory burdens have been too costly.

The Wyoming Division of Banking requires cryptocurrency trading platforms to hold an equal value of fiat funds to the aggregate value of funds held by customers. Although Hawaii has the same regulation, this response has not been typical in other states.

Coinbase and other platforms found these regulations to impractical to continue services in the state.

House Bill 19 “would clarify the provision that state regulators are currently relying on to bar the trading” while House Bill 70 “would clarify that traders are not subject to certain other state finance regulations,” according to the Casper Star Tribune, providing the opportunity for platforms to continue services in the State.