Arizona is one of the 50 states that make up the US, and it has recently been featured in several positive news stories involving Bitcoin.
It is worth mentioning that this is news coming mainly from the political world, and probably not coincidentally following the changes that took place after the mid-term elections in November.
In fact, those elections were won by Democrats, who managed to get new Governor Katie Hobbs elected, but both branches of the local legislature remained in Republican hands.
The first sessions of the revamped legislature were held a few days ago, and some senators in particular have begun proposing bills that are particularly favorable to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Surprising news: Bitcoin legal tender in Arizona
The proposal that caused the most stir was SB 1235 advanced by Senator Wendy Rogers.
In fact, this bill explicitly proposes that the state of Arizona adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, somewhat like what happened in 2021 in El Salvador.
“Legal tender” is defined as a “medium of exchange that is authorized by the United States Constitution or Congress for the payment of debts, public charges, taxes and dues,” and this includes coins issued by the U.S. government, and Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is defined as:
“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.”
Senator Rogers said she also has the support of at least two other Republican senators, Jeff Weninger and J.D. Mesnard.
“Breaking: #Bitcoin is the best performing asset in the world this year according to data from Goldman Sachs.”
Launched my #Crypto bills today, as well as Photo Radar Prohibition, which included nearly all my Republican senator colleagues as cosponsors @JeffWeninger @JDMesnard pic.twitter.com/ueUeFSEybo
— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) January 25, 2023
Her proposal SB 1235 is not yet reported to have been passed, but even if it were, it would first have to be approved by the House of Representatives as well.
Even though Rogers belongs to the Republican Party, which is the same party that has a majority in both the Senate and House in Arizona, it is by no means certain that his proposal will be approved. It currently appears only submitted, but not yet voted on.
It is worth noting that back in April last year Senator Rogers tweeted stating that centralized digital money controlled by central bankers is slavery, while Bitcoin, which is decentralized, is freedom.
Centralized digital money controlled by the central bankers is slavery. Decentralized #Bitcoin is freedom.
— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) April 2, 2022
Wendy Rogers is definitely a bitcoiner, and has been for some time, although there may not be many other bitcoiners like her in the Arizona Senate.
Tax-free cryptocurrencies
A slightly different matter is the one for the SCR 1007 proposal submitted by Rogers herself along with colleagues Borrelli and Wadsack.
This is an amendment to the Arizona Constitution to make cryptocurrencies tax-free.
This proposal is already on its second reading in the Senate, so its process for approval has already begun. It appears that there are several Republican senators who support it, so it might even have some chance of passing.
It is worth mentioning, however, that if it passed in the Senate it would then still have to pass in the House as well, and all that would still not be enough to make it work.
In fact, since it is an amendment to the Constitution it would then also have to be approved by a popular referendum, which in theory could be held next year.
It is possible that Arizona Republicans want to try to attract crypto companies to their territory, but it is not yet clear whether this initiative could also find support from the new Democratic governor. For example, in Florida, where they are trying to do something similar, the governor is a Republican, while in New York-another place where they are trying to do this-the mayor is a Democrat.
Bitcoin’s hashrate
Another piece of good news for Bitcoin, but one that does not come from Arizona, concerns the new all-time high touched by the hashrate a few days ago.
In this beginning of 2023, the daily hashrate estimate has almost always been above 270 Ehash/s, with two peaks above 300 Ehash/s. This is a level that has never been touched before, and even today’s preliminary estimate is that 310 Ehash/s has been exceeded as well.
Taking hourly data, on 6 January there was also a peak above 350 Ehash/s, while today there was one at 340 Ehash/s.
So after the reduction in difficulty on 3 January, miners are back to mining Bitcoin in droves, so much so that a sharp increase in difficulty was required on 15 January, which is now at an all-time high.
Then again, with the end of mining on Ethereum following the move to PoS, many miners found themselves unable to successfully mine other minor cryptocurrencies, and perhaps equipped themselves to move to Bitcoin.
It certainly helped a lot that January’s rise in BTC prices brought profitability back to acceptable levels after the slump of the past few months.
Against such a backdrop, it is not at all surprising that the price of BTC continues to manage to stay consistently above $22,000 these days, after peaking below $16,000 two months ago.
