Key Takeaways
- Any earnings associated with unclaimed digital assets, including staking rewards or airdrops, will be deposited into reserve fund.
- Once deemed abandoned, these assets must be transferred to the Arizona Department of Revenue without converting them to cash.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs signed House Bill 2749 into law on Wednesday, allowing the state to retain custody of unclaimed digital assets like crypto in their native form. The bill, sponsored by House Commerce Committee Chair Jeff Weninger, updates the state’s unclaimed property laws to reflect the presence of digital assets in the financial ecosystem.
HB 2749 mandates that digital assets with no activity or contact from the owner over three years will be presumed abandoned, following the same timeline applied to traditional holdings like stocks. Once deemed abandoned, these assets must be transferred to the Arizona Department of Revenue without converting them to cash.
The bill includes a provision to establish a reserve fund. Any earnings associated with unclaimed digital assets, including staking rewards or airdrops, will be deposited into this fund. Future allocations from the reserve will require legislative approval.
This legislation follows the recent veto of another digital asset proposal. Governor Hobbs rejected a bill led by Senator Wendy Rogers that aimed to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve using state-seized assets. Hobbs cited concerns around volatility and fiduciary risk.
In her veto letter, she wrote that state retirement funds should not be exposed to “untested investments like virtual currency.” Rogers has stated her intention to reintroduce the proposal in the next session.
Despite the vetoed reserve proposal, HB 2749 still allows for the management of digital assets by qualified custodians and permits staking, meaning assets could continue to generate value while under state control. Gains from these processes, if the assets remain unclaimed, will also be transferred to the reserve fund.
The law prohibits the sale of digital assets below prevailing market rates and directs that any sales occur through recognized exchanges or commercially reasonable alternatives for tokens that lack liquidity. Arizona’s legal framework will now explicitly include digital assets under its statutes governing unclaimed property.
HB 2749’s passage comes just a day after New Hampshire’s governor signed HB 302, which allows the state treasurer to invest up to 5% of public funds in either digital assets or precious metals, provided those digital assets have had a market cap of at least $500 billion over the past year.
The development comes the same day a Texas House Committee passed a bill to create a Bitcoin reserve in the state
