California Public Senator Sydney Kamlager filed a measure on Saturday that would allow citizens of the Golden State to pay for state services with cryptocurrencies.
A separate effort led by politicians was initiated over the weekend to make Bitcoin a legal form of exchange in California. California isn’t the only state embracing crypto. Last week, it was announced that Colorado would begin accepting Bitcoin for state taxes and fees in June. A bill to accept Bitcoin as legal payment was presented by an Arizona state Republican last month.
Despite the confusion, the preparations are well underway to pass the bill, with two of the renowned figures as political advisors.
Experts propose that the increasing adoption of Bitcoin at the institutional and state level will take its price to even greater heights, possibly to the level of $1000,000. Currently soaring above $40,000, Bitcoin’s value is 20 times more than Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world. After a successful year, Bitcoin entered the new year with huge expectations. As per the BTC price prediction, the token could potentially reach $100,000 by the year-end, setting new records. Experts believe that the steps taken towards legalizing Bitcoin would open new markets and gateways that could propel the token towards the predicted value.
Bitcoin expert Dennis Porter mentioned that he and policy adviser Ian C. Cauldron are making efforts to enable Bitcoin as a legal tender in California. The tweet, however, did not have clear information regarding the nature of the draft. This created confusion about whether Bitcoin is going to be an officially authorized currency of payment or just a legalized tax payment method. In a clarification, it has been stated that Bitcoin is going to be a legal payment mode for taxes and not an official currency. There have been some opposing voices to this development that consider it to be the “craziest decision ever made by the state.”
California is not the first state to make such a move either, as few other states have already authorized this practice. Many in the financial sector believe that this increased tendency to legalize does not only show the reliability of Bitcoin but also pushes our world towards “hyperbitcoinization.” Daniel Krawisz from Satoshi Nakamoto Institute defined hyperbitcoinization as “the voluntary transformation from an interior currency to a superior system”. It is also believed that smaller acts like the bill from California will add to the bigger picture in the future when Bitcoin becomes the universally accepted finance system.
Bitcoin is already a legal tender in the Central American country of El Salvador. If legalized, California could be a goldmine for Bitcoin, as it is 12 times bigger than El Salvador in terms of the geographical area and has a $3 trillion economy.