Arizona senator Wendy Rogers has submitted a bill that aims to make Bitcoin a legal tender in the state.
If the proposed bill goes through, people in Arizona will be able to use Bitcoin to pay debts and taxes, and business would be able to officially carry out their transactions in Bitcoin.
The bill reads: “A state agency may enter into an agreement with a cryptocurrency issuer to provide a method to accept cryptocurrency as a payment method of fines, civil penalties or other penalties, rent, rates, taxes, fees, charges, revenue, financial obligations and special assessments to pay any amount due to that agency or this state.”
A similar bill was passed in 2021 in Central American country El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele.
The bill is very clear that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that would be classified as legal tender. It reads in part: “the decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency in which a record of transactions is maintained on the Bitcoin blockchain and new units of currency are generated by the computational solution of mathematical problems and that operates independently of a central bank.”
Rogers’ fellow Republican senators Jeff Weninger and J.D. Mesnard are co-sponsors of the bill. It’s the second time Rogers has tried to push the bill through, after it was shot down the first time in January 2022.
