Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has signed a bill (HB 2749) that will establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve (SBR).
The SBR bill stipulates that the state will take money from unclaimed property that gets transferred to the state’s custody. The state safeguards financial assets that have been forgotten by their owners.
Notably, Arizona will also harvest airdrops and staking rewards in order to grow the reserve.
As reported by U.Today, Hobbs vetoed SB 1025, another Bitcoin bill, earlier this week, drawing criticism from the Bitcoin community.
Arizona was on track to become the very first state to pass an SBR bill, but it was recently outpaced by New Hampshire.
New Hampshire, the biggest libertarian hub in the U.S., passed a bill that would make it possible to invest up to 5% of the state’s funds in Bitcoin.
HB 2749 is a watered-down version of SB 1025, which would make it possible to invest public funds and seized crypto into Bitcoin.
Still, the move has been widely celebrated within the crypto industry.
“Second state in two weeks. Not a fickle decision. A law. Bitcoin is entering the mainstream,” Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said.
“You can buy while governments are buying or after they have bought,” former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said.