Utah is on track to become the first U.S. state to establish a Bitcoin reserve, driven by a compressed legislative calendar and significant political momentum. According to Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter, Utah’s 45-day legislative session gives the state a unique opportunity to move quickly on Bitcoin-related legislation.
“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 a January 21 interview with U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis, shared on X (formerly Twitter) on February 2.
On January 28, a Utah House committee voted 8-1 in favor of a bill that would permit the state to allocate a portion of public funds into Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies with market capitalizations exceeding $500 billion, and approved stablecoins. Porter highlighted that every bill passed by the Utah House Economic Development Committee in recent years has ultimately been signed into law, bolstering confidence in the bill’s success.
“We firmly believe that Utah will be the very first state to introduce this legislation,” Porter stated.
While Utah leads the charge, Arizona is the only other state that has progressed beyond the committee stage in its legislative process for a Bitcoin reserve. Meanwhile, states like Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming have introduced similar bills. State officials in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, and South Dakota have expressed public support for a Bitcoin reserve, though no formal legislation has been introduced in those states.
At the federal level, Senator Cynthia Lummis is pushing forward with a Bitcoin reserve bill that aims to secure bipartisan support in the Senate. Lummis’s proposal calls for the U.S. government to acquire 1 million Bitcoin, equivalent to 5% of the total supply, over the next five years.
“We’re having good success. We’re not there yet, but we’re having good success,” Lummis noted regarding the bill’s progress.
The U.S. could leverage its existing holdings of 198,100 Bitcoin, obtained from asset seizures, as part of this reserve. The remaining Bitcoin could be financed through Emergency Support Functions, by liquidating a portion of the country’s $455 billion gold reserves, or a combination of both strategies.
Asset manager VanEck projected that if Bitcoin’s price rises at a compounded annual growth rate of 25% while U.S. national debt increases at 5% CAGR, the U.S. could reduce its national debt by 35% by 2049.