New Hampshire moved this week to foster the state’s first effort toward establishing a $100 million bitcoin bond, which would be directed by a state entity but backed by a private-sector firm, according to those involved with the effort.
The New Hampshire Business Finance Authority authorized “$100,000,000 bonds for a project to acquire and hold digital currency,” according to the description on its agenda. The NHBFA doesn’t direct state-backed bonds, but encourages private-sector entities to administer them. If that happens with this bond, the New Hampshire Executive Council will review the deal and vote on whether to approve it.
Once approved, the project will go live — the first of its kind in the nation.
The NHBFA is a self-funded, state-created organization meant to foster New Hampshire’s economic development. Proceeds from its bond projects return to the entity to help bolster its operation.
State Representative Keith Ammon, a longtime advocate for crypto policy in New Hampshire, said this first bitcoin bond effort is meant to be a template for more to come.
“Bitcoin can partially insulate our state’s runaway inflation,” he said in an interview with CoinDesk. “This is like training wheels to get to that point, protecting our state’s finances from future devaluation of the dollar.”
He said the two-year bond would be reliant on a rising value for bitcoin.
In this past year, BTC is down about 6%, after having climbed steadily for months before its sharp decline beginning last month.
New Hampshire has been in the forefront of state governments pursuing crypto policies. The New England state was the first to establish a crypto reserve earlier this year, moving much more quickly than the federal government, which is still in the planning stages.