State Lawmakers on Bitcoin Mining Policy

A bill that had just cleared a committee in Pennsylvania would have exposed anyone holding Bitcoin in a self-hosted wallet to money laundering charges. Pennsylvania State Representative Robert Leadbeter told that to a room of miners at Mining Disrupt Fort Lauderdale 2025, held March 25 to 27, 2025.

He shared the stage with Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Bryan Posthumus and Dennis Porter, CEO and co-founder of Satoshi Action. Their message to miners: the rules that decide whether a mine can run are often written in state capitals.

"if the piece of legislation that just passed through committee this week in Pennsylvania were enacted into law that the bankers wrote, you would all be subject to money laundering charges," Leadbeter said. He said the bill's language had been written by bankers, and that he spent that week working with both chambers to fix it.

Porter started Satoshi Action in June 2022 and works mostly at the state level. "You know, I often say DC is where dreams go to die," he said. In his view, most energy policy that touches miners, from power rates to grid balancing programs, is made by state legislatures and public service commissions.

The panel named the fights. In Nebraska, a bill would have put a 2.5 cent excise tax on every kilowatt-hour a miner used. The moderator said some miners told him their tax bill would have jumped to north of $5 million overnight, and that miners at the conference had testified against it at the state capitol. Porter said Idaho was the first state to set a special power rate for miners, much higher than the normal large load rate, and that Satoshi Action fought the energy companies there. He also pointed to local rules that hold miners to lower noise limits than any other industry.

Posthumus said that in Michigan a township can bar Bitcoin mining in an area zoned industrial, even where a quarry is allowed. He described a three-phase package that starts with a strategic Bitcoin reserve bill, adds a Bitcoin bill of rights, and then takes on debanking. Leadbeter has his own reserve proposal, the Keystone Digital Asset Custody Fund bill.

Their advice to miners was to show up. Posthumus said that if you are not at the table, you are on the table. Porter said the people to know are the staff, because personnel is policy.

When they spoke, Bitcoin traded at $87,393. Today it is $81,466.

The full story is on Mining Disrupt at miningdisrupt dot com, and many more like it play around the clock on Bitcoin Radio.