NORTH CAROLINA (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — North Carolina leaders are looking into investing in cryptocurrency. A bill is making its way through the General Assembly that would authorize the state treasurer to invest state funds and pensions in digital assets like Bitcoin.
HB 92 is co-sponsored by Alamance County State Rep. Stephen Ross. He told Queen City News during an interview on Tuesday that allowing investments into digital assets will put the state in a stronger financial position.
“We’re not getting enough return in the pension plan to be able to totally fund the liabilities. And so, therefore, we’re coming up millions short, a huge deficit,” he said.
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Ross said the state’s risk would be minimal as the money would only be invested in ETFs or exchange-traded funds. Those funds contain several cryptocurrencies or digital assets and are constantly being modified to improve the chance of high returns.
“That has eliminated a lot of the fear, a lot. There were a lot of individuals that said now that they’ve out it into an exchange trading, and you can get it with other diverse portfolios of other cryptocurrencies, I’m okay with it,” added Ross.
The legislation is backed by the House Speaker who wrote on X that it will position the state for long-term success. Governor Josh Stein told the News and Observer he is comfortable with the treasurer making diversified investments that can help the state pension fund.
“I think that what it tells me is there are a number of people that have started to recognize…I don’t know that you could pass this bill four years ago, you still had that skepticism,” said Ross.
North Carolina is not the only state looking at bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Similar bills have been filed in more than 20 states.
