Utah could be the first US state to establish a Bitcoin reserve due to a shorter legislative window calendar and “political momentum."
There’s a “very good shot” that Utah will be the first because they only have 45 days to decide, Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter said in a recent interview with US Senator Cynthia Lummis, which he shared on X on Feb. 2.
“It’s either sink or swim in 45 days. No one else has a faster calendar, and no one else has more political momentum and willpower to get it done,” Porter said in the Jan. 21 interview.
One of Utah’s house committees on Jan. 28 voted 8-1 in favor of a bill that would allow the state to invest a portion of public funds into Bitcoin (BTC), other cryptocurrencies with a market cap above $500 billion and approved stablecoins.
Source: Dennis Porter
Every single bill that has been passed by the Utah House Economic Development Committee over the last several years was ultimately passed into law, Porter said.
“We firmly believe that Utah will be the very first state to introduce this legislation.”
Arizona is the only other state that has passed this stage in the bill lifecycle, while Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming have introduced bills to establish a Bitcoin reserve.
State officials in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and South Dakota have publicly endorsed a Bitcoin reserve, but no bill has been introduced in those states yet.
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In the Jan. 21 interview, Lummis noted that progress is being made on the Bitcoin reserve bill she introduced at the federal level, noting that it would need at least 60 votes to receive bipartisan support in the Senate.
“We're having good success. We're not there yet, but we're having good success.”
The Lummis bill wants the US to obtain 1 million Bitcoin or 5% of Bitcoin’s total supply over the next five years.
The US could repurpose the 198,100 Bitcoin obtained from asset seizures, while the remaining 801,900 Bitcoin could be financed through Emergency Support Functions, selling a portion of its $455 billion gold reserves for Bitcoin, or a combination of both.
Asset manager VanEck estimated the US could reduce its national debt by 35% by 2049 should Bitcoin’s price rise at a compounded annual growth rate of 25% while US national debt increases at 5% CAGR.
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