A bill that seeks to regulate Bitcoin mining activity in the State of Arkansas has approved in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, now going to the governor’s office for approval.
According In addition to the bill, the Arkansas Data Center Act of 2023 is intended to regulate the Bitcoin mining industry in the American state, creating guidelines for miners and protecting them from discriminatory regulations and taxes.
Arkansas state lawmakers quickly approved the bill after Sen. Joshua Bryant proposed it on March 30, the bill’s status page shows. The document acknowledges “that data centers create jobs, pay taxes and provide overall economic value to local communities.”
According to the approved bill, a digital asset miner is required to “pay applicable taxes and government fees in acceptable forms of currency, and operate in a manner that does not cause stress on a generation or transmission network capabilities.” electric utility company.
Under the legislation, cryptominers will also have the same rights as data centers. The bill outlines that the Arkansas government should not “impose a different requirement for a digital asset mining business than it would for any requirement for a data center.”
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The Arkansas measure follows a similar initiative in the State of Montana. In late March, the Montana Senate passed a bill designed to protect crypto miners operating within the state. The bill aims to protect miners against taxes on digital assets used for payments and remove energy fees that discriminate against domestic crypto miners and digital asset companies.
The state of Texas is in a different direction. Its Senate Business and Commerce Committee approved legislation on April 4 that would largely remove incentives for miners operating under the state’s cryptocurrency-friendly regulatory environment, Cointelegraph reported.
An even stronger move came from New York last November, when Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the proof-of-work (PoW) mining moratorium, banning crypto mining activities in the state for two years. At the federal level, cryptocurrency miners in the United States could eventually be subject to a 30% tax on electricity costs under a budget proposal introduced on March 9 by President Joe Biden with the goal of “reducing mining activity”.
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