Texas lawmaker behind state’s crypto reserve bill: Ether may be next

This year, Texas’ legislature passed a law to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the state, opening the door for other cryptocurrencies in the future. According to the original sponsor of the bill, Ether could be the next reserve asset.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on Thursday, Texas state Senator Charles Schwertner discussed the implementation of the Bitcoin (BTC) reserve bill signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in June. Though the text of the bill allows Texas to hold other cryptocurrencies in a “special fund outside the state treasury,” Bitcoin was the only one to meet the requirements at the time of passage.

“I’m really interested to see the speed at which they establish the reserve and how it acts from a returns standpoint,” said Schwertner. ”If Ethereum maintains its market cap over 24 months, I think it’s reasonable and prudent to give direction that Ethereum could be added to the cryptocurrency [reserve].”

Source: Charles SchwertnerUnder the law to establish and administer a Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, for any cryptocurrency to qualify as a reserve asset, it must “have an average market capitalization of at least $500 billion over the most recent 24-month period.” Bitcoin, with a market capitalization of more than $2 trillion, meets this threshold

Related: Massachusetts Bitcoin reserve bill gets lukewarm response at hearing

By comparison, Ether (ETH) has only maintained a market cap of more than $500 billion twice: for about a month in 2021 and off and on from August to October this year. On Friday, the price of ETH and its market cap dropped sharply, with the latter reaching about $494 billion at the time of publication.

How does Texas’ law differ from those passed in other states?

While many US states have rejected or otherwise failed to advance similar bills establishing crypto reserves, Arizona and New Hampshire signed legislation into law in 2025. Arizona’s fund includes crypto seized through criminal forfeiture, while New Hampshire’s law allows the state’s treasury to use funds to invest in crypto with a market cap of more than $500 billion.

“We’re the only state that actually put sovereign money, taxpayer money, toward the reserve,” said Schwertner, adding: “We took the full punch [establishing] a reserve as well as the money behind it.”

According to the senator, the state comptroller is looking into the implementation of the law, including custodians for the reserve’s holdings. Under the conditions of the law, any custodian must be a “state or federally chartered financial institution” or other entity regulated in Texas

Texas’ law, as well as others under consideration, followed the federal government under US President Donald Trump establishing both a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a “Digital Asset Stockpile” in March. The executive order laid out policies to use confiscated crypto to fund the reserve, but officials later added that there were “budget-neutral ways” to buy BTC.

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