Texas Launches Strategic Bitcoin Reserve with $5M IBIT Purchase

Texas purchased $5 million of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) on November 20, 2025, as the first U.S. state-level bitcoin allocation. The purchase opens the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, a program established by the state legislature in June 2025 and seeded with a $10 million appropriation. The law names the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company as program manager and requires cold storage with a qualified third-party custodian, annual transparency reports, and independent audits. Officials described the $5 million ETF purchase as an interim placeholder while a competitive procurement to select a custody provider proceeds. The custody request for proposals emphasizes security architecture, SOC audit coverage, incident response, and public-sector reporting. The trade executed when market quotes were near $87,000 per bitcoin and the ETF exposure represents roughly half of the program’s initial appropriation. Officials intend to migrate the ETF exposure into direct cold storage once a custodian is selected and wallet controls and audit processes pass independent review. The statute establishes risk limits, reporting checkpoints, and review cycles, and near-term milestones include awarding a custody contract, publishing operating policies with documented key management and incident-response procedures, transitioning holdings from ETF to cold storage with documented audit procedures including on-chain verification where applicable, and deciding how to deploy the remaining $5 million and whether to seek expanded legislative authorization. 

Source: https://theweb3.news/policy/texas-first-state-buy-bitcoin/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.