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

Worldcoin, the crypto-based digital identity project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is under scrutiny again as German regulators demand compliance with European Union (EU) data protection laws.

The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision’s (BayLDA) investigation focused on how Worldcoin’s flagship technology, the World ID, is compliant with GDPR standards, as per a Thursday announcement. 

BayLDA has ordered Worldcoin, now rebranded as World, to implement a GDPR-compliant data deletion protocol by no later than January 19.

The GDPR is a comprehensive EU law designed to protect individuals’ personal data and privacy, enforcing strict rules on how data is collected, processed, and stored.

“With today’s decision, we are enforcing European fundamental rights standards in favor of the data subjects in a technologically demanding and legally highly complex case,” said Michael Will, President of the State Office at BayDLA. “All users who have provided “Worldcoin” with their iris data will in future have the unrestricted opportunity to enforce their right to erasure.”

The World ID is generated through “Orbs,” devices that scan a person’s eyeball to create a unique digital identifier designed to verify that individuals are real people rather than bots.

However, BayLDA raised concerns over the “fundamental data protection risks” posed by processing such sensitive biometric data and its compliance with data protection rights.

Worldcoin voluntarily suspended some of its operations across EU countries during the inquiry and introduced updates to improve compliance.

The regulator flagged earlier phases of World’s data collection practices, which involved storing iris codes in centralized databases. 

These activities were deemed non-compliant with GDPR, leading to an order to delete all data collected without sufficient legal basis. World is now required to secure explicit consent for certain data processing steps.

Despite implementing cryptographic protocols that anonymize data by splitting iris codes into encrypted fragments, the BayLDA determined that further adjustments were necessary. 

Worldcoin has already received the German regulator’s decision and plans to appeal it, according to the agency’s statement.

World Faces Global Privacy Concerns

Worldcoin, launched in 2023, introduced a concept called “proof of personhood,” seeking to establish a vast network of users verified as humans rather than bots or AI algorithms. 

However, its vision quickly drew the attention of regulators worldwide.

Countries such as Kenya and Portugal temporarily banned the project over privacy concerns.

By October, Worldcoin transitioned to its new identity as ‘World’ and unveiled an updated version of its iris-scanning “Orb” device. 

These devices, with 30% fewer parts and triple the production capacity of its predecessor, were first deployed in Berlin, Germany, in July 2023. 

While the initiative gained attention for its innovation, it was equally criticized by privacy advocates who labeled the project as intrusive and potentially exploitative.

Shortly after the project’s launch, France and Germany initiated investigations into its biometric data collection practices. France’s privacy watchdog, CNIL, questioned the legality of the data collection and storage processes, calling them “questionable.”

World did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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