Colorado To Accept Taxes and Fees in Crypto Soon
Table of Content
The Larger Picture: Colorado To Be Crypto State"
States Compete for Crypto Prominence"
Colorado has become the first US state to announce that it will soon begin to accept tax and fee payments in cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Residents of the state will be allowed to pay their taxes in crypto starting from June.
Jared Polis, the Governor of Colorado, officially announced the move last week on social media and explained the mechanism to be used. Citizens who wish to can make crypto payments through an intermediary deployed by the state, which will then deposit an equivalent amount in dollars into the state’s treasury.
“It is kind of like credit card payments, with the bonus that there are no returned payments!” the governor tweeted.
The Larger Picture: Colorado To Be Crypto State
The efforts to accept taxes in crypto are part of a larger scheme of things. The ultimate goal is to make the state the center of cryptocurrency and blockchain innovation. The governor’s office called the tax move the state’s “next logical step on the path to digital statehood”.
As early as 2019, Colorado became the first US state to use blockchain technology as part of government infrastructure.
That year, the state also emerged as the first state to hire a chief blockchain architect (Thaddeus Batt) to carry out blockchain-related proposals, and it enacted the Digital Tokens Act that led to a state-level explosion of crypto.
In early 2021, the ColoradoJam Incubator was launched to further the state’s blockchain initiatives. Interestingly, one of the teams is currently developing a blockchain program to track the branding of livestock in the Colorado agricultural industry.
Much of Colorado’s positive association with blockchain technology can be traced back to the efforts of Governor Polis. As a former tech entrepreneur and a strong proponent of crypto, Polis first took center stage at the ETHDenver conference, one of the largest crypto conferences in the world, alongside Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
States Compete for Crypto Prominence
Colorado is not the only state working towards blockchain dominance. Lawmakers in Wyoming and Arizona have come up with similar proposals, too.
Wyoming has even gone a step further. It has passed crypto-friendly regulations that woo businesses and innovators in the space.
Meanwhile, Texas’s pro-crypto laws and low energy costs have made it a hotbed for the Bitcoin mining industry.
Get set to witness a revolutionizing moment in the near future where contenders for crypto adoption will be not just individuals and corporations but also governments and nation-states.