Pennsylvania House of Representatives Passes Bi-Partisan Crypto Bill Protecting Citizens’ Rights to Self-Custody

Pennsylvania’s House of Representative is passing a new bi-partisan crypto bill that protects the self-custody rights of customers, establishes Bitcoin (BTC) as a valid payment method, and provides clear guidelines on how BTC transactions should be taxed.

According to new documents, Pennsylvania’s House passed the bill – known as the “Bitcoin Rights bill” – earlier this week with the backing of both Democrats and Republicans, meaning it’s now on its way to the Senate floor for further consideration.

“The Commonwealth or a municipality may not prohibit, restrict or otherwise impair the ability of an individual or business to do either of the following:

1) Accept digital assets as a method of payment for legal goods and services. 2) Maintain self-custody of a digital asset using a self-hosted wallet or hardware wallet…

The Commonwealth or a municipality may not impose an additional tax, withholding, assessment or charge on a digit asset that is based solely on the use of the digital asset as a method of payment to purchase legal goods or services.”

The bill further establishes that the government may operate a node – or a computational device that contains and updates a copy of a blockchain – for numerous purposes, including the transferring of digital assets.

“It shall be lawful in this Commonwealth to operate a node for any of the following purposes:

1) Connecting to a blockchain protocol or a protocol built on top of a blockchain protocol. 2) Transferring a digital asset on a blockchain protocol.”

The bill was originally drafted by the Satoshi Action Fund (SAF), a BTC advocate group that has helped numerous other states create crypto-related laws.

Bitcoin is trading for $67,687 at time of writing, a marginal increase during the last 24 hours.

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