Home » US senator proposes Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in Arizona

US senator proposes Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in Arizona

by Tim

Wendy Rogers, a US senator, has proposed several cryptocurrency-related bills, including one to make Bitcoin (BTC) a legal tender in Arizona. She previously proposed a similar amendment in 2022, which was rejected.

Bitcoin (BTC) legal tender in Arizona

This could be a big first for the US. This Wednesday, January 25, a bill concerning cryptocurrencies was proposed to the U.S. Senate by Wendy Rogers. It could make Arizona the first US state to recognise Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal tender in its territory.

If this proposal were to be accepted, residents of the western US state would be able to pay their taxes with Bitcoin, but also their everyday purchases as merchants would accept the market’s leading cryptocurrency as a means of payment.

In order to justify the legitimacy of her amendment, the Republican senator relied on a recent report by Goldman Sachs. The American bank explains that BTC would be the best performing asset at the beginning of 2023 and could continue to do so throughout the year.

This is not the first time Wendy Rogers has pushed a cryptocurrency bill in the US Senate. In 2022, the senator already tried to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the state of Arizona, a proposal that was however rejected on first reading.

Apart from that, Wendy Rogers also proposed the idea of making cryptocurrencies a tax-free asset. If this amendment is approved, voters will be able to decide in 2024 whether they want digital assets – which are not stablecoins backed by foreign currency – to be tax-free.

What future for this bill?

This bill is supported by two other Republican senators. This is the majority party in the Senate in Arizona and also in the House of Representatives, which could work in favour of the bill’s passage.

However, while crypto investors have already welcomed this proposed legislation, there is no guarantee that it will pass the US Senate. Especially since the first attempt in 2022 was quickly swept aside.

Moreover, this proposal comes up against a major wall in the form of the US Constitution. The US Constitution does not allow a state to have monetary sovereignty and therefore its own currency. This means that BTC would have to be accepted throughout the US.

So will Arizona follow El Salvador and the Central African Republic in pioneering the adoption of Bitcoin worldwide? We’ll know in the next few weeks

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