The tax-haven U.S. states of Montana and New Hampshire fired first this week ahead of an ominous House hearing.

New Hampshire specifically exempted “convertible virtual currency” (a FinCEN definition from a landmark 2013 regulation) from the state’s money transmission regulations.  This means that in New Hampshire, no license, permit or fee will be required to engage in virtual currency transactions for profit.  This reversed a 2015 law which had incorporated cryptocurrency into the state’s money transmission law.

Montana has issued a $416K grant to a local Bitcoin mining firm.  The grant comes out of an economic development trust that is funded with taxes on coal miners.

Nevada has banned proposed taxes on blockchain usage as well as allowing blockchain records to be used as legal records.

Arizona now considers both blockchain records and smart contracts to be legal equivalents of all other records and contracts.

Meanwhile, a committee in the House of Representatives will focus on exploring “terrorists and illicit use of … FinTech, the national security implications of virtual currencies such as bitcoin, and the use of ‘blockchain’ technologies to record transactions and uncover illicit activities”.

In 2017, the contrast between the feds’ paranoia and obstinance and the relative forward thinking of state governments could not be more pronounced.

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