Making Impacts in Bitcoin Policy at the State Level | Bitcoin 2026

We're here at Bitcoin Conference 2026 in Las Vegas. All kinds of booths. They're handing out free Bitcoin. You can pay with Bitcoin. And as we sit here today, no less than 40 states have introduced or passed some form of Bitcoin legislation, which means if you are a state that has not introduced or passed some form of Bitcoin legislation, you are in the minority of the United States as far as legislation's concerned. That's That's incredible. We've come a long way. And I want to start off by asking you all what piece of legislation at the state level excites you the most right now? What do you see passing next? You guys all have done a lot of work at the state level long before 40 states introduced Bitcoin legislation. What is exciting you right now at the state level for Bitcoin adoption and policy? Well, I would say of all the legislation we've looked at, there's none No one that's perfect. North Carolina is dealing with some of the privacy issues that we have, whether uh uh they can access your Bitcoin or or your wallet without a warrant. I think that's very important. Uh Oklahoma has dealt with uh guaranteeing you your right to self-custody. And I think that's a very key issue for anybody in the Bitcoin world is that we want assurance that the government's not going to try to outlaw me holding my own coins. So, I think those are two that I think have been very important to deal with. But Dana, uh an elected official talking about privacy, be careful. We might get you reelected into the House of Reps because it's a big deal for us and and it's rare to hear. So, that's exciting. What else as far as the uh pending legislation? Well, as you know, Wyoming is pretty far ahead in a lot of these areas for with respect to most of the states. So, right now I'm I'm a little bit more playing defense trying to preserve what Wyoming has for privacy and a couple of other things dealing with people coming back against data centers and other things like that. And also if you know if if we're going to do another run at a strategic reserve and for the state of Wyoming, maybe maybe doing that. But a lot of it is for me defense and helping other states bring themselves up to where we are now. And in Rhode Island, it's a traditionally blue state. We have 113 state reps and senators and 95 of them are Democrats. So, we're not going to out-Wyoming Wyoming. 50 bills passed since the blockchain committee was formed in 2018, but we're still in the education phase. So, for us it has a lot to do with the discussions that we're currently having to pass a committee to study blockchain and Bitcoin. And then once we can get through the education phase, then we can begin to legislate responsibly. Caitlin, a lot of people don't know here, but correct me if I'm wrong, you participated in the first state level Bitcoin strategic reserve legislation. Is that correct? Yeah, I I wrote it and uh You wrote it. I would say that's participating. >> With with some other people with with some with some other friends in the in the space and I gave it to a legislator who wanted to run it. And we we worked on it together and then he ran it. It it failed. It was the first first to be filed, first to run, and first to fail. The the issue there was just getting the office of the treasurer on board. We knew we were going to face some opposition from conservatives and others who normally would be friendly to this in the the but we didn't even make it there. Um And, you know, you know, I think that there is a categorical difference between a state or a municipality or a county owning Bitcoin and the feds. And, you know, okay, I'm from Wyoming. I know my senator was running the strategic reserve for the for the US government. There is a massive difference. The US government can print its own money, so it can do whatever it wants. A state has to have some way of defending itself against that. And so, I see that, you know, a state having exposure to Bitcoin is more of a defensive measure against the Federal Reserve than just a strategic reserve and what people think about it on the federal level. So, one question I want to ask, there's two questions. Number one, why should people in a state, for those out there, why should they care whether their state adopts Bitcoin in the strategic reserve and holds it or not? That's number one. And then, number two, how difficult is it to pass something like a strategic reserve? We know Texas, I believe, is the only state, I think maybe there's one other, but Texas got it done. I don't know if they've executed on buying it yet, but why does it matter and and how difficult is it to have that actually pass through at the state level? It's it's difficult. I mean, and the reason is, so I designed it as a self-custody. So, the state of Wyoming does own Bitcoin. It just owns it through, you know, what the same way you would own it if you own the ETFs or or MicroStrategy or things like that. So, they're they have exposure through those more traditional mechanisms, but I wanted it to be self-custody, so that they could have it the way we actually Wyoming did pass a gold strategic reserve. We have like 10 gold bars. They're they're they're somewhere in the capital. But, that that kind of thing we should have, but getting the legislators to understand what that means, why that is different from just owning it as a stock, why the get get the Treasury on board with managing it and understanding the risks and how that works and why that's different. It's it that's an education problem more than anything else. Dana, you you you did you had two terms two successful terms in the state legislature in Mississippi. You know, what are what are legislators like what are what are the elected officials thinking when a bill like that is brought to them? What's going through their head? Are they paying attention? Do they dismiss it as like, oh this is a crazy bill. You know, this thing will die out. Walk us through that process when, you know, that bill comes through and as I understand it, you're not in favor entirely of a of a federal strategic reserve for the United States and kind of expand on that if you can. Yeah, well, if you're talking about legislators, number one, most of them don't understand Bitcoin. The vast majority of them are not smart enough to understand much of what's happening. They they they really don't care. They are fed information. They vote for things that are going to get them reelected. All they really care about is how it's going to affect their next election. So, trying to get them to understand Bitcoin, trying to get them to understand the importance of any aspect of it is a difficult task because it's something that you really got to spend time thinking about. Now, I don't have a very high opinion of the vast majority of legislators out there and I just don't think they have the ability to do that. Now, why we as an organization oppose a state Bitcoin reserve or the federal Bitcoin reserve, we look at legislation under two basic principles. Number one, does it expand the freedom of the citizens? And number two, does it limit the power of government? And when we look at a Bitcoin reserve, I don't see that it meets either one of those. If you look at the government side of it, does it limit government? Anything that government's putting money into that then they want it to grow. More money to the government means less freedom for the people. So, if the government has extra money and they have money that they can put into a reserve to let it grow, give me my money back. So, if they can give me my money back, then I can invest it in Bitcoin and then my family directly benefits from that. Instead of giving it to the state, letting it grow, and then the state have more and more money. Cuz I believe Bitcoin's going way up and I don't want that extra money going to the state. I want it coming to me and the citizens. That's a very interesting point. You know, we hear all the time at these conferences from often time from the same, you know, mouths. On one hand, abolish taxes and and income taxes. And on the same sentence, let's get a Bitcoin strategic reserve with taxpayer money. So, I think it's a great point that you bring up and something to consider. Um what do you what where do you guys, you know, stand on a federal strategic Bitcoin reserve? And I think to that point, does it weaken sovereignty within the states? Does it strengthen sovereignty? I see both angles and and I also see calling the point of strengthening state sovereignty sovereignty if you can have a force field against inflation and and debasement. Well, I think there's game theory at play at every angle, right? So, governments there's two dozen governments that currently own Bitcoin on their balance sheet. There are hundreds of companies that own Bitcoin on their balance sheet. And there are uh tens of millions of individuals that own Bitcoin on their personal balance sheet. And so, when you put all that together, uh I I think that from from perspective, uh this goes back to 1944 and the Bretton Woods agreement and backing our money by something strong. Fast forwarding to '71, Nixon suspending the convertibility of gold. We're now on a 55-year tirade of watching our public get debt go from zero to 39 trillion and gold go from $35 an ounce to 5,000. And so when that happens and our money isn't backed by anything, maybe there is an opportunity from a government perspective to back our our gold and back our dollar by something strong, whether that's gold from Fort Knox if it still exists and with Bitcoin that we have in some sort of a reserve. Now, whether that's accrued via civil forfeiture or not, I think is a big question versus just buying it en masse and that's something that maybe we can debate on the stage, but I see it as if it's civil forfeiture, it is no different than if someone were to forfeit cash, stocks, anything else. It's just is the government going to hold it in that asset or liquidate it for something else. Speaking of, Dan, I saw on your website for the Rhode Island Bitcoin Policy Initiative, there's a lot of bills in Rhode Island that are in committee right now. Can you speak on One of them I saw was the de minimis tax exemption for We're here today. A lot of people are buying coffee with Bitcoin. They're going to have to report that on their taxes. You know, if you walked to the Cash App booth and you got $21 in Bitcoin and then you bought the coffee for $8, I think you'll have to report that in taxes as the Bitcoin received and then the purchase and and it's a nightmare for something so simple. Tell us about that and what else is going on in Rhode Island. >> Yeah, so I wrote that bill and a couple of years ago. I was really empowered and excited and when I was able to testify on behalf of it, which was the first, I believe the first state de minimis tax exemption where we were treating digital money like money. And in doing so, I realized that there's a massive gap in the discourse and the understanding of what this is. And Dana touched on it a bit earlier about how they really just don't understand and they're focused on either getting elected or getting reelected. And so, when when writing that, I I realized that we as I liken it to the internet. We go back to 1998. I remember going into a Burger King at 6 years old and seeing AOL disks sitting at the counter. And you put that disk in your computer and now you're online. And what did that do? It removed so much friction that currently existed or existed prior to that to getting on the internet. The equivalent friction for Bitcoin right now is being able to treat it like money and being able to spend it like money. And so, when I have to pay and worry about highest in, first out, last in, first out, first in, first out from a tax perspective, that's onerous. And when we remove that friction from both the state and a federal level, we're going to the moon. I'd have to say that Wyoming already has a de minimis exemption for that because we don't have an income tax. Yeah, and and I think we've talked about some of the things that we think are the most important things to come. And I do believe that I mean, we got to treat Bitcoin as money. And I mean, you cannot be taxed. If I buy one Bitcoin, it doesn't matter if the government screws up the US dollar and they deflate it and now I can buy more with my one Bitcoin. Why what gives them the right to tax me because they can't do their job with the US dollar. So, I agree. That is a very key issue that we've got to get past and we've got to educate the the legislators into saying, you just don't have a right to tax this. It's money. How do you How do you tell folks at home, you know, I always say the local level, people don't get excited as much, but if you really if you're if your block, if your neighborhood, if your local organization, whether it's your church, if they're not dealing in Bitcoin and you're cheering for a strategic reserve at the federal level, but you you go uh I don't know if my local group will adopt it, it's skipping a lot of levels there. What do you say to folks at home that are interested in educating their local organizations, their cities, the state level, and would you folks that have served in the government, you know, be open if someone How would you recommend they try to get their state legislators to to come to a local event uh of that kind? So, I'm going to be very careful here, but uh one way to get people one way to get legislators interested in this space is the same way you get anybody interested in the space. You get you you make them holders. Uh it would be really great if a legislator you offered a donation to a legislator for their campaign in Bitcoin. Now, you're going to it's uh something you're going to donate to them anyway, of course, but uh right now there's rules about it. You have to be able to follow those rules. So, you know, check your local regulations, but if they if they were to get it, maybe they'd be more interested in it because wait, why is this person doing that? And you know, maybe we'll see some movement on that at the state level in the future, but uh that would be one way is just make them holders. Make them have to deal with it and understand it and how it works. It's like, "I just gave you this money, but it's different." You know, and I've got a bunch of kids. All of my kids are in their mid to late 20s, and all of them are at the point where they're saying, "I'm working. I'm working hard. I'm working two jobs, three jobs, and I still can't afford a house. Well, what's wrong?" And and that kind of gives you the opportunity because there are a lot of They're a lot of I would call them kids. I know they're not necessarily kids that know there's a problem and that's usually where we start and that's where I think probably most Bitcoiners started. We talking about kind of our journey and that and that you go well, something's wrong here. So, we got to find a way to basically and that's why I'm very leery of government getting involved in Bitcoin at all because government's the ones that's messed up our money. Government is the reason all these politicians are the reason my kids can't work two jobs and afford a home. So, that to me is the intro to here's an answer and and honestly, not that I'm advertising a book, but I gave away about seven of Natalie Brunell's book because it's a great history of where our money's come through and what's wrong and it has spurred the a lot of my kids saying, all right, I know what is this and what are we doing? There are some legislators that that care enough to do that and to try to you can walk them down that road. Dana, real quick, how did you get orange peeled or introduced into Bitcoin? The short version of just who introduced it to you, how did you find it and and get into it? Well, years ago, I was playing around on the computer and I found the Bitcoin faucet. So, I put in my address, I put in my wife's address and uh those are sitting on a hard drive somewhere that I asked my wife about a year ago, "Hey, where is that hard drive?" And she's like, "Oh, you mean the one we gave our son to tear apart?" I was like, "Uh that was worth a million bucks." Uh so, that was and honestly, I left it. I thought it was just internet gamer money until a few years later you start hearing about it and you kind of start going down that road again. And and it was when I was in the legislature that I started down that road because I kept realizing just I I don't want politicians involved in my money. That's a great story. The faucet story is a great way to find Bitcoin uh you know, but wow, that's a great one. Uh quick question, not to open this whole Pandora's Box, but I was I'm very interested in pension systems and retirement at the state level. Do you guys see Bitcoin fitting into that? We have the ETF now has been around for you know, over a year and yet pensions are very, very slow to enter the Bitcoin space. Um yet they deal with things like underfunding. Most of them have not caught up to healthy funding levels since the financial crisis. You know, this is an interesting area. Also, maybe one where a state uh owning Bitcoin would be potentially acceptable to some people who would otherwise uh be against it because some states have, you know, defined uh contribution plans and some have defined benefit plans. And in a defined benefit plan, the state has to manage the money and then pay it out, you know, on a as a defined benefit. Having Bitcoin in that helps to alleviate the underfunded aspect of it. And uh you know, buffer the state with respect to how fast those things can grow. Well, how fast the liabilities can grow because Bitcoin is also growing along with it. So, I think that is actually something that hopefully the the people in the in the state retirement funds around the country are looking at as a way to defray the issues that it that their defined benefit plans uh might create. And obviously in a defined contribution plan, you want Bitcoin in it because you you get the growth. But it's less of a, you know, actual budgetary concern for the state's long-term health. You know, and one of the things that I say is that we don't elect a a chief hedge fund manager or a chief investor. But the fact is, when you look at the retirement benefits, they are charged with taking this money and investing this money. And that that is a small portion of the government where they do have to make money grow. And so I mean I've put a bunch of my 401k in in Bitcoin ETF or wherever else I can put it. So certainly as somebody who takes a retirement from the state of Mississippi, yeah, I I think they should look at all of that. It obviously is not a crazy hairbrained idea. I mean you look at Fidelity and everybody else that's involved in it. So I think we're going to get to the point where you're going to say they're not doing their fiduciary duty if they don't at least explore it. For sure though, the I helped the firefighters become one of the first unions to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet and it's only a matter of time if pensions continue to underperform. Right? Individuals are holding Bitcoin that are parts of these pension systems and it's only a matter of time before they say this is the easiest thing I've ever done. I don't know what graduate school you went to. I hold Bitcoin, it grows over time and you guys can't figure out why I need to keep contributing to a system that's underfunded. So I think it's a matter of time. Okay, couple quick questions. If you could introduce any Bitcoin policy at the state level now and you were like the state king for the day, it passes no matter what. What would you be interested in introducing for the state if anything? Dana might just say he'd he'd go on vacation, but what what would you guys be interested in in legislation wise? I mean I think pie in the sky is Bitcoin as legal tender, but I really think it's removing friction at any possible juncture. Right? If we make this easier to to spend, whether it is de minimis, whether it is your private key protections, whether I think some sort of a comprehensive bill that really goes through ensuring that there is no question that we are treating this like money because that's what it is and any law that we can pass that further solidifies and codifies that will go so much further for the advancement of this technology. I I guess I would have to go with Bitcoin as legal tender. Yeah, I would I would go along with that, too. I mean, I would say that it that is a key issue for for all the states to do. You know, I mean, I think there's plenty of other things that need to be done like the guaranteeing that you can self self-custody. I I think and on the negative side of that, I would ban the government from being involved in anything that where they can manipulate the market cuz that's what we want them out of. Welcome to Predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. >> [music] >> Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct. Your prediction, your edge. Dual bets, predict where everything is a market. So, we have consensus reached here, folks, for Bitcoin is legal tender. Now, for the folks at home that are, you know, sitting here or they're at the booths or they're or they're watching from home, we as Bitcoiners, we often think, that's great. I love the panel. I'm going to go home. I'm going to stack Bitcoin. I'm going to live my life. The the political system is corrupt. It's fiat-based. I'll never make a change. I don't want to get involved. Where is the most important area to get involved? How can they do it and why should they fight that feeling to just stay away from the broken system and try to do something regarding Bitcoin in their home city, their home state. Well, my story how I got into politics was that I got 11 people to email my city council and they changed the drive. It wasn't no Bitcoin, but they completely changed and I asked my alderman why and he's like, "Well, that was 11 more emails than I get on any other topic." So, the fact is is that anyone email and everybody here knows that deals with politics. One email, if you take the time with one email, a politician looks at that knows there's 20 other people that believe that same way. So, an email contact and whether it's your city alderman, whether it's your state representative, if you live in their district and you can vote against them, they will pay attention to what you say and your voice is actually amplified cuz you've got a whole row of people behind you that just haven't taken the time to make that contact. You may not care about politics, but politics cares about you. And if you want to if people want to put stick their heads in the sand, you're going to be governed by what everyone else is saying. So, the best thing to do is either be involved or support the people who are who are involved that agree with you. And it's not this is not a Bitcoin specific issue. Let's say you have a city council that is trying to annex a force annex a a farm. Uh you get a bunch of people coming out and they have to back off force annexing that farm. It this is wide ranging, but if you if you don't get involved in politics, then politics is going to overrun everything you everything you like. And you don't have to go and testify in front of a Senate Finance Committee or a Emerging Tech and AI Committee. You can write letters, right? And I understand that there are there are two camps here. There are people that this is pseudonymous money, I can stay anonymous, I can stay pseudonymous, I don't have to worry about it, but you can also send letters, call, reach out, have support. Okay, well, you guys heard it here. I think we got good consensus. We got Bitcoin is legal tender front and center. We have some consensus on pensions being a good spot where even if you're against a strategic Bitcoin reserve, that's a great spot for a state to at least start exploring Bitcoin. And to the folks at home, please, please get involved in your local community and your state and offer support for Bitcoin because at the end of the day, Bitcoin may not need the state, but that's where you live and it will impact you what is happening at your local and state level. So, please give a huge, huge round of applause for our panel today. I think they did an incredible job and they continue to work on our behalf in Bitcoin adoption. Make some noise, y'all. >> [music] >> Every year this community comes together to celebrate [music] to debate to build what comes next. >> [music] >> And every year the stage [music] gets bigger. Sound money center stage. [music] So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. >> [music] >> Nashville, July 2027.