Donald Trump and his political allies are plugging away at plans to stockpile Bitcoin at a national level in the U.S. Treasury. 

And now, with the asset’s price repeatedly soaring to new peaks since Election Day, some U.S. states are following suit.  

So far, three states are fielding proposals to establish strategic Bitcoin reserves, while digital asset advocates are calling for other local governments to do the same.

Here’s which states are considering topping up their coffers with the world’s oldest and most valuable digital currency. 

Texas

Texas legislators will soon weigh in on whether or not they should establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve. 

Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione proposed a bill in December that calls for the Lone Star State to create a Bitcoin stockpile. 

The draft legislation stipulates that Texas must hold the Bitcoin for at least five years. The cryptocurrency must be kept in cold storage—that is, on some kind of a device that is not connected to the internet—and the assets cannot be used to make transactions outside of Texas, according to the bill.

“A strategic Bitcoin reserve aligns with Texas’s commitment to fostering innovation in digital assets and providing Texans with enhanced financial security,” the bill reads.

Finally, the proposal also enables Texans to donate to the state’s Bitcoin fund.

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives put forth a bill in November that called for the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve.

Under the Bitcoin bill, Pennsylvania’s Treasurer would be able to buy Bitcoin with “up to 10%” of the State General Fund, Rainy Day Fund, and the State Investment Fund.

Tapping 10% of the State General Fund would allow the Pennsylvania Treasury to purchase nearly $1 billion worth of Bitcoin.  

“Bitcoin, which has appreciated significantly over the years, can help Pennsylvania keep pace with inflation and economic change,” the state’s lawmakers said in a legislative memo published on November 12. 

Ohio 

Ohio State Representative Derek Merrin on December 17 proposed a bill to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the Buckeye State. 

The Ohio Bitcoin Reserve Act calls for the creation of a Bitcoin fund in the state Treasury. It also vests Ohio’s State Treasurer with discretionary power to purchase the asset.

“Ohio must embrace technology and protect tax dollars from eroding,” Merrin said Tuesday in an X post. 

Although some details of how the reserve will work remain unclear, the draft legislation is expected to serve as a framework for Ohio lawmakers to build out in 2025.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

After 372 hours, Haliey Welch, better known as the Hawk Tuah girl, has finally woken from her slumber to announce she’s made some new friends—namely, the same law firm that’s suing her business partners over her failed meme coin project.

Sixteen days ago, Welch’s would-be meme coin debut, a Solana token called HAWK, imploded at launch, enriching an apparently interconnected web of early investors and leaving most retail traders in the lurch. That evening, Welch told an irate audience on an X Spaces that she was going to bed and would see everyone in the morning—before going radio silent for weeks on end.

On Friday, Welch broke that silence by announcing she is cooperating with the law firm that sued the HAWK token’s creators Thursday for allegedly violating American securities laws.

“I am fully cooperating with and am committed to assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted, as well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter,” Welch said on X (formerly known as Twitter). 

A spokesperson for Welch told Decrypt that the influencer was “totally siloed” from the HAWK project and “had zero control over it.”

The spokesperson also asserted that Welch only received a fixed sponsorship fee for lending her likeness to the meme coin project, adding “there was no guarantee she would make any additional money from the meme coin thereafter.”

That story runs somewhat counter to one put forward earlier this week by the team taking responsibility for building most of HAWK. The crypto token launch platform OverHere said on Tuesday that it only took leadership over the doomed token because one of Welch’s associates, a mysterious figure known as “Doc Hollywood,” “vanished when things got hard.”

The OverHere team claimed it took zero fees from HAWK and made zero profit on the project, and pointed the finger at Welch and Doc Hollywood for an alleged lack of transparency.

The lawsuit filed Thursday against the project—by 12 American plaintiffs claiming to have suffered damages in excess of $151,000 from the project—listed OverHere as one of multiple defendants. It did not list Welch. 

Alexandra Roberts, a law professor at Northeastern University, told Decrypt that she has never before seen a situation like this—in which a celebrity such as Welch has actively aided a lawsuit aimed at a project the celebrity lent their likeness to.

“I think it’s a great PR move,” Roberts said. “I think she’s trying to get out in front of it and make a really clear statement: ‘Not only did I not know what was going on, but I want to advocate on behalf of the people who were swindled.’”

Burwick Law, the firm suing HAWK’s creators, told Decrypt that it does not represent Welch, but is in conversations with her counsel.

When asked why Welch was not listed as a co-defendant in the HAWK lawsuit, Max Burwick, managing partner at Burwick Law, said the decision was intentional, and hinted it might help make his clients whole sooner. 

“In this matter, we have chosen the strategy we believe to be most effective in helping our clients achieve meaningful results,” Burwick told Decrypt.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

A federal judge denied BiT Global’s request for a temporary restraining order Wednesday, finding that the Hong Kong-based firm failed to show an imminent and irreparable harm that would come from Coinbase’s plans to soon delist WBTC, or Wrapped Bitcoin.

“Ultimately, I have no evidence from you about what is to come,” U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín told BiT Global’s attorney. “I will not stop Coinbase from delisting WBTC.”

BiT Global sued Coinbase last week, alleging the exchange’s plans to delist WBTC Thursday, while promoting its own version of wrapped Bitcoin, amounted to unfair business practices. As a custodian for WBTC reserves alongside BitGo, BiT Global sought a judgement prohibiting Coinbase from delisting the $14 billion product from its exchange.

Responding to BiT Global’s lawsuit earlier this week, Coinbase said its decision to delist WBTC was motivated by “unacceptable risk that control of WBTC would fall into the hands of Justin Sun,” the co-founder of Tron, a layer-1 blockchain. 

While he vigorously denies the allegations, Sun was accused of fraud and market manipulation in an SEC lawsuit brought last year. When Coinbase launched its wrapped Bitcoin product, dubbed cbBTC, in September, Sun skewered the product, calling it “central bank Bitcoin” and a “dark day for BTC.”

Sun serves as an advisor to BiT Global, Robert Liu, a board member at BiT Global, told CoinDesk in an October interview. That same month, Liu told Decrypt that Sun also acts as a “major financial supporter” of WBTC’s revamped custody setup.

During the hearing, Judge Martínez-Olguín asked BiT Global’s counsel how a loss of profits could be considered irreparable harm, as BiT Global had alleged. Kneupper & Covey Partner Cyclone Covey responded by saying that a 5% drop in WBTC’s supply immediately followed Coinbase’s delisting announcement.

Coinbase’s attorney, WilmerHale Partner Sonal Mehta, countered that WBTC’s trading volume on Coinbase constitutes less than 1% of WBTC’s overall trading, which could not result in “lost sales.” She also said WBTC’s supply was already dropping before Coinbase’s delisting move.

“This case is about Coinbase being allowed to do what it needs to do to protect its platform,” she said. “It’s not about monopolies. It’s not about antitrust claims.”

Wrapped Bitcoin, whether it’s issued by Coinbase or BitGo and BiT Global, is commonly used in decentralized finance, or DeFi. Backed 1:1 with Bitcoin reserves, the products enable users to effectively use Bitcoin in lending, borrowing, and trading via decentralized applications.

BitGo said that it was teaming up with BiT Global in August, using the Hong Kong-based firm to diversify WBTC’s backing in a multi-jurisdictional way. While BitGo is based in the U.S., the company also set up an entity in Singapore following community feedback.

BitGo, BitGo Singapore, and Bit Global all hold one private key—two of which are needed, under WBTC’s current custody setup, for minting and destroying WBTC.

Since Coinbase launched cbBTC, the token’s circulating supply has reached 20,700, giving the asset a $2.1 billion market cap, according to data from CoinGecko. Last month, Coinbase announced that its cbBTC product would be added to Solana after first launching on Ethereum and the Coinbase-launched Ethereum scaling solution Base.

In an interview with Decrypt, BiT Global’s Liu claimed Tuesday that Coinbase delisted WBTC following a single email exchange, in which the Hong Kong-based firm responded to a “generic inquiry” about WBTC’s revamped custodial setup—and never heard back.

Responding to BiT Global’s lawsuit later that day, an exhibit attached to Coinbase’s filing suggested otherwise. A member of Coinbase’s listings team made specific inquiries about WBTC, BiT Global, and Sun across multiple emails, according to Coinbase’s filing.

In an email sent Oct. 24, a BiT Global representative pointed to so-called collateral records for a version of WBTC issued on Tron, addressing questions about the token’s backing. As part of a dashboard on WBTC’s website, the information has since been removed as WBTC’s viability on Tron is reassessed, Liu said.

Currently, there aren’t many DeFi projects that can leverage WBTC on Tron, Liu said. He attributed the dearth of projects to a lack of compatibility between Tron and Ethereum, making it difficult for developers to port their existing projects over to Tron’s network.

“Before we are able to really solve the cross-chain deployment bottleneck, there’s no real market demand for [Tron-based] WBTC,” Liu said. “So we decided to basically off-board that.”

Liu said that BiT Global’s headcount has grown to 30 in Hong Kong, and despite the scrutiny that WBTC has weathered, the project has been able to expand its roster of institutional merchants, which help distribute WBTC to users as administrators. Still, he described dismay over the increasing surge of scrutiny pointed at BiT Global and WBTC.

“It’s shocking,” Liu said. “People seem to have a crusade against a certain individual target, and they go relentlessly [at them] simply for one reason: to destroy them.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward