Crypto Advocacy Groups Team Up to Fight Against Texas Anti-Bitcoin Bill

On Monday, April 10th, the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the Texas Blockchain Council, and the Satoshi Action Fund started a campaign aimed at blocking Texas Senate Bill 1751. The bill seeks to protect the state’s energy grid at times of high usage but is widely considered to be anti-Bitcoin as it would remove a series of industry incentives and protections so far offered to the cryptocurrency miners.

The Start of the “Don’t Mess With Texas Innovation” Campaign

This Monday, three important cryptocurrency groups, the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the Texas Blockchain Council, and the Satoshi Action Fund launched a campaign called “Don’t Mess with Texas Innovation”. The campaign is a direct response to a proposed state bill that would largely remove the incentives and protections offered to Bitcoin miners in Texas.

According to the campaign, the bill—broadly aimed at protecting the state’s energy grid—could ultimately cause great harm to the future of innovation in Texas, and lead to a significant job loss in the rural areas. Furthermore, the three groups are alleging that by suppressing Bitcoin adoption, the bill could lead to the widespread proliferation of a CBDC.

In recent months, CBDCs have become a contentious topic as many see them as a way to increase government control and further infringe on the individual’s right to privacy. The worries have led several organizations to try and push back against their implementation and Florida’s Governor even proposed a bill to ban the use of CBDCs in the state.

The Chamber of Digital Commerce, the Texas Blockchain Council, and the Satoshi Action Fund see Bitcoin both as the main alternative to the proliferation of CBDCs, and a way to more broadly boost the economy of, and innovation in Texas. As the result, they are calling on their supporters to both call and email their State Senators and demand they block the bill.

The Future of Cryptocurrency Mining in the US

The path toward federal-level legislation on cryptocurrency mining is likely to be long. The White House has signaled it is, at best, cryptocurrency-skeptical, and the recently-formed Subcommittee on Digital Assets has multiple members openly hostile toward the technology. State-level lawmakers have, however, already proven to be moving in the opposite direction.

As recently as last Friday, lawmakers in Arkansas passed a bill aimed at protecting the rights of cryptocurrency miners in the state. The year saw two more similar bills passed in Missouri and Montana—the latter being drafted with the help of the Satoshi Action Fund, one of the organizations behind the “Don’t Mess with Texas Innovation” campaign.

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Legislators in Wyoming have also sought to expand the blockchain-related legal framework. While not centered on cryptocurrency miners specifically, the state passed a bill to protect individual privacy by shielding private keys in all circumstances unless their disclosure is absolutely instrumental for an investigation.

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Do you think the “Don’t mess with Texas innovation” campaign will manage to block the anti-Bitcoin bill? Let us know in the comments below.

About the author

Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.