Three U.S. states — Texas, New Hampshire, and Arizona — have enacted strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation since mid-2025. Texas is the only state to have funded its reserve, allocating $10 million and purchasing $5 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a placeholder in November ...
"We want to actually own Bitcoin, not hold a financial product that tracks it." — Texas Comptroller's Office, RFP 908-26-1778WS procurement document, May 2026
Three U.S. states — Texas, New Hampshire, and Arizona — have enacted strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation since mid-2025. Texas is the only state to have funded its reserve, allocating $10 million and purchasing $5 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as a placeholder in November 2025. Now the state is moving to shed the ETF wrapper entirely: a Request for Proposals issued May 7, 2026, seeks a qualified custodian to transition holdings to direct Bitcoin custody by August 2026. Vendor responses are due June 15.
At the federal level, competing legislative efforts — the BITCOIN Act of 2025 (S.954, Senator Lummis) and the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 (ARMA, H.R.8957) — propose acquiring up to 1 million BTC over five years with a 20-year mandatory hold. Neither has reached a floor vote. Meanwhile, the federal government already holds an estimated 328,372 BTC (~$20.5 billion at $62,640 per BTC as of June 9, 2026) from criminal and civil forfeitures, locked under Executive Order 14233 signed March 6, 2025, which prohibits sales.
The emerging pattern is clear: public entities are shifting from passive exposure via ETF wrappers toward direct Bitcoin custody — a structural change in how governments interact with digital assets. This transition creates new demand for institutional-grade custody infrastructure while raising unresolved questions about key management, insurance, and operational security at the state government level.
As of June 9, 2026, three U.S. states have signed Bitcoin reserve legislation into law:
| State | Bill | Signed | Allocation | Funded | Custody Model | |-------|------|--------|------------|--------|---------------| | New Hampshire | HB 302 | May 6, 2025 | Up to 5% of public funds | No | ETF permitted | | Arizona | HB 2749 | May 2025 | Unclaimed digital property | No direct allocation | State custody (unclaimed assets) | | Texas | SB 21 | June 20, 2025 | $10 million | Yes ($5M deployed Nov 2025) | Transitioning ETF → direct BTC |
The three approaches differ substantially in design philosophy. New Hampshire's HB 302 authorizes the state treasurer to invest up to 5% of total public funds in digital assets with a market capitalization exceeding $500 billion — a threshold only Bitcoin currently meets. The law permits holding via ETFs, avoiding the complexity of direct custody. Arizona's HB 2749 takes a different approach: it redirects unclaimed digital property into a Bitcoin and digital assets reserve fund, harvesting interest, airdrops, and staking rewards from abandoned property after a three-year dormancy period. Texas is the only state to have appropriated fresh capital.
According to data from Bitcoin Reserve Monitor, 16 states introduced reserve-related legislation as of early 2025. Most stalled in committee. The conversion rate from bill to law stands at approximately 19%.
The Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, established under SB 21, sits outside the state treasury as a special fund held by the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company. The Comptroller of Public Accounts manages the reserve, advised by a five-member advisory committee.
On May 28, 2026, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced the committee's membership, which includes CleanSpark executive appointees and Bitcoin mining industry representatives, according to a press release from the Texas Comptroller's office.
The more consequential development: the state issued RFP 908-26-1778WS on May 7, seeking a custodian and liquidity provider to transition the reserve's existing $10 million allocation in BlackRock's IBIT to directly held Bitcoin. The RFP deadline is June 15, 2026. The contract specifies a 60-day transition window, targeting completion around August 2026.
This move signals that Texas views ETF exposure as a temporary measure, not an end state. Direct custody eliminates the 0.25% annual management fee on IBIT and removes BlackRock as an intermediary between the state and its Bitcoin holdings. At $10 million in assets, the fee savings are negligible (~$25,000 annually). The principle, however, matters: Texas is establishing the operational precedent for state-level Bitcoin self-custody.
SB 21 requires the Comptroller to publish a biennial report to the legislature by December 31 of each even-numbered year, covering holdings, valuations, and administrative actions — the first report is due December 31, 2026.
New Hampshire's HB 302, the first state-level Bitcoin reserve law signed in the U.S., authorized the state treasurer to invest up to 5% of public funds in qualifying digital assets. As of June 2026, no purchases have been publicly disclosed.
The state has, however, moved forward on a parallel track: Bitcoin-backed municipal bonds. In November 2025, the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority approved what it described as the world's first Bitcoin-backed municipal bond — a $100 million issuance structured in two series (2026A-1 and 2026A-2), both maturing in 2029.
The underlying borrower is NH CleanSpark Borrower Trust 2026-1, an entity linked to publicly traded Bitcoin mining firm CleanSpark. The bonds use Bitcoin as collateral rather than taxpayer backing. BitGo Bank & Trust serves as custodian, holding BTC in segregated wallets, and acts as liquidation agent.
Moody's assigned a speculative-grade Ba2 rating — two notches below investment grade. The state assumes no financial liability; the entire repayment mechanism rests on the private borrower and pledged Bitcoin. Issuance is expected in 2026, subject to market conditions.
The bond structure effectively creates a public-private hybrid: the state lends its municipal bond issuance authority to a private Bitcoin mining firm, which posts BTC collateral. The state captures economic activity without direct balance sheet exposure to Bitcoin price volatility.
Arizona's HB 2749, signed in May 2025, took a fundamentally different approach. Rather than appropriating funds to buy Bitcoin, the law redirects unclaimed digital property into a state-managed reserve.
Under the statute, digital assets left dormant for three years become state property. Airdrops, staking rewards, and interest accruing on those assets flow into the reserve. The approach is budget-neutral — no taxpayer funds are deployed — but accumulation depends entirely on the volume of unclaimed crypto within Arizona's jurisdiction.
Arizona lawmakers vetted a more aggressive bill, SB 1025, which would have allowed direct Bitcoin purchases. Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed that measure. The surviving HB 2749 represents the political compromise: exposure to Bitcoin without the headline risk of a state buying volatile assets with public money.
In the 2026 legislative session, Arizona introduced additional bills (including SB 1649) to expand the reserve's scope. These passed the Senate Finance committee but have not cleared both chambers.
The U.S. federal government holds an estimated 328,372 BTC as of February 2026, according to Arkham Intelligence tracking across 610 identified government wallet addresses. At Bitcoin's June 9, 2026 price of approximately $62,640, this stockpile is valued at roughly $20.6 billion.
Executive Order 14233, signed March 6, 2025, established the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as a permanent reserve asset. The order explicitly prohibits sales: all Bitcoin held or acquired through criminal and civil forfeiture proceedings is to be retained indefinitely. The order also directed all federal agencies to conduct a full accounting of digital assets under their control.
That accounting has not been made public. Patrick Witt, executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, told attendees at Consensus Miami in May 2026 that an announcement on reserve details was coming "in the next few weeks," but declined to disclose current holdings, saying the priority is to "get our own house in order."
Two competing bills seek to codify and expand the reserve beyond the executive order:
BITCOIN Act of 2025 (S.954): Sponsored by Senator Cynthia Lummis, the bill directs the Treasury to purchase 1 million BTC over five years with a 20-year mandatory hold. The bill has not reached a Senate floor vote.
American Reserve Modernization Act (H.R.8957): Introduced May 21, 2026, by Representatives Nick Begich and Jared Golden with 17 co-sponsors, ARMA targets the same 1 million BTC / 20-year framework but adds a distinctive funding mechanism: revaluing the Federal Reserve's gold certificates from the statutory price of $42.22/oz to current market value (~$2,350/oz as of June 2026). The resulting paper gain — potentially exceeding $700 billion — would fund Bitcoin purchases without increasing the national debt. The bill also mandates quarterly "Proof of Reserve" public attestations and independent third-party audits. It is currently in the House Financial Services Committee.
A separate bill, H.R.2112, seeks to codify EO 14233 into statute, providing permanence that an executive order lacks.
The shift from ETF wrappers to direct custody creates a new operational challenge for state governments. Managing private keys, implementing multi-signature controls, and maintaining insurance coverage for digital assets are capabilities that state treasuries were not designed to handle.
Texas's RFP provides a window into the requirements: the state is seeking a regulated U.S.-based custodian with qualified custody status, segregated wallet infrastructure, and liquidity services to execute the ETF-to-BTC transition without market impact. The contract also includes ongoing custody for the reserve's full allocation.
New Hampshire's bond structure sidesteps this problem by outsourcing custody to BitGo Bank & Trust, a purpose-built digital asset custodian. Arizona's unclaimed-property model similarly requires custody infrastructure for seized assets, though the state has not publicly disclosed its custodial arrangements.
At the federal level, the January 2026 incident — where the U.S. Marshals Service investigated a possible hack of government digital-asset wallets following allegations from on-chain investigator ZachXBT that more than $60 million was stolen from seizure wallets in late 2025 — underscores the operational risks of government Bitcoin custody at scale.
Beyond the three enacted laws, several states have pending legislation:
The state Bitcoin reserve movement has passed the legislation phase and entered the implementation phase — at least in Texas. The state's decision to move from ETF exposure to direct custody within 14 months of enacting SB 21 compresses the timeline between political gesture and operational reality.
The economic significance remains modest: $10 million is a rounding error in Texas's $321.4 billion biennial budget. But the operational infrastructure being built — custodial frameworks, advisory committees, biennial reporting requirements, and procurement processes — establishes templates that other states will reference.
At the federal level, the gap between executive action and legislative codification persists. The 328,372 BTC held by the government exist under an executive order that a future administration could reverse. The BITCOIN Act and ARMA both seek permanence, but neither has assembled the votes for passage.
The data shows an asymmetry: governments are comfortable acquiring Bitcoin through enforcement (seizures, forfeitures, unclaimed property) but reluctant to appropriate fresh public funds for purchases. Texas's $10 million allocation is the exception. Whether other states follow with actual capital deployments — rather than legislative frameworks that authorize but do not fund — will determine whether state Bitcoin reserves remain a policy experiment or become a durable feature of public finance.