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Greg Gianforte, the governor of Montana, signed into law a bill that would largely prevent local governments in the state from enacting laws to ban cryptocurrency mining.
According to Montana legislature records, Gianforte signed SB178 into law on May 2 after the bill passed both the state House of Representatives and the Senate. The legislation effectively enshrines the rights of cryptocurrency miners in the US state by revising existing laws, prohibiting discriminatory electricity rates for mining companies, and not allowing taxation of cryptocurrencies used as a payment method.
The latest version of the bill suggested that the legislation was introduced in part as a preventive measure in response to certain proposals in other states, meaning that “digital asset mining has often been hampered by state and local regulation.” For example, in April, lawmakers in the Texas State Senate introduced a bill aimed at limiting incentives for cryptocurrency miners by participating in a program designed to compensate them for reducing the load on the state’s power grid.
BREAKING: The State of Montana has officially signed the ‘Right to Mine’ #Bitcoin bill into law. pic.twitter.com/f3PD1WgTOW
— Satoshi Action Fund (@SatoshiActFund) May 4, 2023
Cryptocurrency advocacy group Satoshi Action Fund has backed legislation to support mining in some US states. Legislators in the Arkansas House and Senate passed a bill similar to Montana’s SB178. Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter said Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had already signed the bill into law, but there was no such action on the legislature’s website at the time of publication.
“At the state level, we can make significant progress, we can move forward, and there is little the federal government can do in the meantime,” Porter said.
Related: The Economics of Cryptocurrency Mining: Costs, Revenues and Market Trends
A similar mining bill was promoted in the Mississippi legislature, but that bill “died” in March. Porter said the Missouri bill is “still a little behind the curve” but is still under consideration in the legislature.
At the federal level, the Biden administration recently renewed efforts to impose a 30 percent tax on cryptocurrency miners as part of the fiscal year 2024 budget proposal. The tax will potentially be aimed at electricity consumption by miners.