The HB 4488 Law grants permanent substance status to a possible state Bitcoin reserve in Texas.
The SB 21 proposal will be law if ABBOTT does not vote before June 22.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed the bill HB 4488, which It grants legal protection to an eventual state reserve of Bitcoin, although it still does not exist formally. The legislation, approved last Friday, guarantees that any fund of this type – if it becomes created – is excluded from future laws that seek to dissolve it or incorporate it into the General State Budget.
With this measure, Texas becomes one of the first states of the United States to approve a legal framework specifically designed to protect a potential reserve in Bitcoin, in a context where several states already explore similar initiatives. The project establishes that these funds, if established by future legislation, would have a “permanent fund” and could not be claimed or assigned to other state agencies.
The law HB 4488 It does not directly authorize the purchase or storage of Bitcoin by the State, but it feels the legal basis so that this occurs through another proposal: the Senate bill SB 21. This second initiative, which would allow Texas to officially create a strategic Bitcoin reserve, was approved by both legislative chambers and sent to the Governor Abbott’s desk on June 1, as Cryptoics reported.
SB 21 would allow the State to invest in Bitcoin and other cryptoactives whose market capitalization exceeds USD 500,000 million, a threshold that currently only complies with Bitcoin. However, so far, the governor had not yet signed or vetoed the project. According to the legislative rules of the State, if Abbott does not act before June 22, the proposal will automatically become law without the need for its signature.
Texas has shown a growing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies in recent years, and the recent approval of HB 4488 reinforces that trend. The initiative is part of a broader movement in the United States, where more than a dozen states have considered proposals to adopt Bitcoin as an asset of state reserve during 2025. Among them, Arizona stands out, which this week reactivated its bill HB 2324 to form a bitcoin reserve with seized assets, and New Hampshire, which became May in May in May the first jurisdiction of the country in the first jurisdiction of the country Active reserve in BTC.
In the case of Texas, if SB 21 is promulgated and enters into force, the State could become the first to establish a strategic reserve backed by the legal framework already defined in HB 4488. For now, the approval of this last project represents a preliminary, but significant step, towards the integration of Bitcoin into the financial management of the State.
While the final destination of SB 21 is defined, the approval of HB 4488 makes it clear that Texas is preparing for a future in which Bitcoin is part of its official reserves, while anticipating any future attempt to dismantle that type of funds once constituted.
