Nikolas Sargeant
Florida lawmakers have introduced House Bill 183, legislation that would authorize the state's chief financial officer to invest up to 10 percent of specified public funds in digital assets and exchange-traded products. The measure would also permit the State Board of Administration to allocate up to 10 percent of the Florida Retirement System's System Trust Fund to digital assets, which the bill defines to include bitcoin, tokenized securities, and NFTs with strict custody requirements.
Assets could be held by the chief financial officer, a qualified custodian, or through an SEC-registered ETF, with the bill positioning bitcoin as a potential inflation hedge and store of value for state funds. The legislation references a March 2025 White House executive order that created a federal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as policy context, with an effective date set for July 1, 2026.
The proposal would also enable Floridians to pay certain taxes and fees in digital assets, with those payments converted to dollars and transferred to the state's general fund. This initiative follows similar actions by Arizona, New Hampshire, and Texas, which enacted comparable measures in the first half of 2025.
Florida's effort represents renewed momentum for state bitcoin reserve plans after many 2025 bills failed to advance when legislative sessions ended. Florida withdrew two prominent cryptocurrency bills on May 3, just one day after its legislative session concluded, that would have authorized the state to invest up to 10 percent of certain public funds in Bitcoin. House Bill 487 and Senate Bill 550, both introduced in February, were removed from legislative consideration, reflecting increasing caution about incorporating volatile digital assets into public finance despite Florida's reputation as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction. The legislature passed over 200 bills during the session but none addressed digital assets, suggesting a deliberate deprioritization in favor of legislation focused on public health, education, and environmental protection. The bill now awaits committee assignment in the Florida House before proceeding through the legislative process.
