North Carolina's Bold Leap: Crypto Assets for Tax Payments on the Table!

House Bill 920: The Game Changer

Hold onto your hats, folks! North Carolina is shaking things up with a revolutionary bill that could let you pay your taxes with crypto. Yep, you heard that right! State Representative Neal Jackson is behind House Bill 920, which, if it passes, would morph into the North Carolina Digital Asset Freedom Act. It's a wild move that could redefine how we think about money!

Digital Assets: The New Frontier of Economic Exchange

The bill screams, "The General Assembly finds that digital assets, when properly regulated and aligned with principles of decentralization, security, and resilience, can be a valid and stable medium for economic exchange." They're not just dipping their toes in; they're diving headfirst into the crypto pool!

Not All Crypto is Created Equal

But hold up, not every crypto gets a free pass. The North Carolina draft has some strict rules. Your digital asset needs to meet a hefty list of requirements to join the tax party. We're talking a market cap of at least $750 billion and a daily trading volume topping $10 billion. Plus, it's got to be listed on multiple regulated U.S. exchanges.

Bitcoin: The Lone Wolf?

Guess what? Only Bitcoin (BTC) is swaggering in with a market cap of $1.6 trillion and a daily trading volume of $45 billion. It's the only crypto strutting its stuff past the bill's high bar. Ethereum (ETH)? Not quite making the cut with its $188 billion market cap and $20 billion daily volume. But hey, the future's bright, and other cryptos might just catch up!

The Hurdles: Liquidity, Market Depth, and More

The North Carolina bill isn't playing around. Eligible digital assets must have been rocking an open, permissionless market for at least 10 years without any external meddling or state support. No pre-mining, no insider allocations, and no central authority control. The token can't rely on a single entity, foundation, or a cozy group of insiders for its operation or governance. And it's got to be a commodity, not a security token, according to U.S. regulators.

A Broader Vision for Digital Assets

North Carolina isn't stopping at tax payments. They've also thrown out two other bills that would let an independent investment authority splash up to 5% of pension funds into digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and NFTs. It's a full-on embrace of the digital future!