Arkansas joins Montana, Texas with bills on Bitcoin mining policies

The US state of Arkansas joined Montana and Texas this year in proposing legislation to regulate Bitcoin mining while offering legal protections to companies operating such businesses, a stance at odds with national regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC), which has fined and filed lawsuits against companies that operate cryptocurrency exchanges.

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Fast facts

• The state’s bitcoin bill, known as the Data Centers Act of 2023, has passed both the Arkansas House of Representatives and Senate and is now awaiting the governor’s approval. The bill, proposed by Republican Senator Joshua Bryant on March 30, seeks to protect miners from discriminatory regulations and taxes with clearer guidelines.
• It says crypto miners will be required “to pay applicable taxes and government fees in acceptable forms of currency and operate in a manner that does not cause stress on an electric public utility’s production capacity or transmission network.”
• According to the legislation, crypto miners will have the same rights as data centers, which the state recognizes as an asset to the local economy.
• The move in Arkansas echoes a similar move in Montana in February when the state Senate passed a bill to offer legal protections to cryptocurrency miners, such as preventing discriminatory electricity rates.
• The picture in Texas is more mixed, with legislation introduced on April 4 that would eliminate some incentives for crypto miners in the state, while in March the state introduced a bill to support Bitcoin mining, which is still pending in the House Committee on Governmental Affairs.
• Meanwhile, US regulators such as the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have fined and filed lawsuits against crypto trading platforms, such as Kraken and Binance, claiming they lack legal approvals to sell some of their services.
• Congressman Tom Emmer from the Republican Party has criticized SEC Chairman Gary Gensler during a podcast appearance, saying that Gensler is “blindly spraying the crypto community with enforcement actions while completely missing the really bad actors.”
• The administration of President Joe Biden has also proposed a special tax on crypto miners equal to 30 percent of the cost of electricity they use.

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