Texas Bill Would Let Cities and Counties Invest $10 Million in Cryptocurrencies
Key Facts
Democratic Representative Ron Reynolds filed House Bill 815 on the first day of prefiling for Texas’ 90th legislative session, proposing to let each municipality or county invest up to $10 million of public funds in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. The authority would be conditional on the bill’s passage and would take effect on September 1, 2027, under its text, as reported by TheStreet. The proposal shifts the debate from a statewide reserve to separate investment authority for local governments. The cap does not allocate $10 million across the state as a whole; it applies to each city or county individually. The bill does not cover school districts.
HB 815 amends the Texas Public Funds Investment Act by adding cryptocurrencies to the list of permitted investments. Its definitions of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies draw on the law that created the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, opening the door to other digital assets rather than limiting investment to bitcoin. Local governments would still be required to include cryptocurrencies in their written investment policies before making any purchase. Existing law requires those policies to prioritize the safety of capital and liquidity. It also ranks public-fund investment objectives, placing preservation and safety of principal first, followed by liquidity and then yield.
The proposal does not carry over all the restrictions in the state reserve law to local governments. It does not include a requirement that an asset have an average market capitalization of $500 billion over the latest 24 months, or the custody rules included in the reserve law. It also sets no digital-asset-specific audit requirements or rules for handling losses. Its $10 million cap applies to each municipality or county, while the reserve law creates a special fund outside the state treasury. The reserve law required purchased crypto assets to have an average market capitalization of at least $500 billion.
Reynolds previously introduced a broader bill in March 2025 that would have allowed the state comptroller to invest up to $250 million from the Economic Stabilization Fund in cryptocurrencies. That bill also carried a $10 million local cap, but did not become law. The new HB 815 drops the rainy-day fund provision, focusing on municipal and county investments. Separately, the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve was established by a law signed by Governor Greg Abbott in June 2025. The Senate passed the reserve bill by 25 votes to 5 on March 6, 2025, amid debate over hedging against inflation and volatility and diversifying public assets.
Under the state reserve framework, the Texas Comptroller’s Office bought about $10 million in a BlackRock bitcoin fund and also sought to appoint a custodian for direct holdings. Those purchases belong to the comptroller’s office and are separate from the local authority proposed in HB 815. The existing reserve law differs from Reynolds’ bill in its beneficiaries, asset scope and investment conditions. The local proposal sets a cap for each city or county and does not impose the market-cap threshold or custody rules in the reserve law. Any expansion of local-government investments would remain subject to the objectives set out in the Public Funds Investment Act, which places capital safety and liquidity ahead of yield.
Prefiling for bills in Texas’ 90th legislative session began on November 9, 2026, while the regular session is set to begin at noon on January 12, 2027. HB 815 had not been referred to a committee when TheStreet published its report, leaving it at the pre-session stage. The bill is set to be considered during the session beginning in January, after the prefiling period allowed lawmakers to submit proposals. If enacted, the authority in the bill would take effect on September 1, 2027. In market data for the previous session, bitcoin closed at $73,796.06 on November 10, 2026.