Wyoming's Pitch to Bitcoin Miners

A miner in Wyoming who wants a lower power rate does not have to go to the Public Utility Commission. The miner can go straight to the utility and shake hands on a deal. That was one of the points Robert Cornish made at Mining Disrupt Miami 2024, held June 24 to 26, 2024. Cornish is an attorney based in Jackson, Wyoming, and he told the room he helped draft some of the state's blockchain laws, including its law for special purpose depository institutions.

His opening line set the tone. In his words, "I believe you can still rock in America, but you have to do it in Wyoming if you're doing Bitcoin." His reasoning started with federal law. Securities and commodities rules for Bitcoin are uncertain, he said, while Wyoming was the first state to pass legislation for digital assets and is still adding to it. He asked anyone in the industry to have some presence in Wyoming, through an LLC, a corporation or a trust.

Residents of the state, which in his definition includes companies and trusts, can trade digital assets with each other inside Wyoming. He put that pool at over a million possible participants. He went through the rest of the list. Wyoming does not tax digital assets.

It has rules for loans backed by digital assets, custody laws for holding them, a regulatory sandbox that can waive a rule for two years while a business is built, captive insurance that can be funded with cryptocurrency, and a new structure for DAOs called the DUNA. Then he turned to the Federal Reserve. Custodia, the first special purpose depository institution licensed in Wyoming, applied for Fedwire access. Cornish said the people who wrote the banking laws expected approval.

The Fed instead took the position that access is discretionary. Custodia was appealing to the 10th Circuit, and he expected the case to reach the Supreme Court. "Custodia is leading the fight and I hope they win," he said. He also covered the planned Wyoming stablecoin, which he described as fully regulated, backed by the state and legal tender inside Wyoming, with a commission building the staff to govern it.

He was clear about the limits. Federal tax still applies, marketing rules for anything that could be a security still apply, and a business has to actually be a Wyoming entity to use these laws. His summary was that Wyoming isn't perfect, but it's close. When the host asked about life there, Cornish described the least populated state in the country, with cheap electricity, a low cost of living, and a big small town held together by about 600 miles of interstate.

When Cornish spoke, Bitcoin traded at $61,272. Today it is $80,163. The full story is on Mining Disrupt at miningdisrupt dot com, and many more like it play around the clock on Bitcoin Radio.