Colorado to let residents pay taxes in cryptocurrency

What 

In an interview with CNBC earlier this week, Jared Polis, Governor of Colorado, said the state aims to accept crypto for all state tax-related purposes by mid-2022  

Why 

Governor Polis has been a long-time advocate of crypto, having accepted donations in Bitcoin to his campaign and led the drive to position Colorado as the home for blockchain innovation 

What next

The state plans to convert incoming crypto into dollars to limit exposure to price volatility 

The Story

Colorado is one of many US states looking to introduce cryptocurrency legislation in one form or another. “We expect by this summer to accept crypto for all of our state tax-related purposes,” Polis said on CNBC’s Crypto World. 

Any crypto payments will immediately be converted into dollars, a process which will be handled by an intermediary, Polis explained. The reason for the conversion being that the state’s approved budget is in dollars, and that legislation prohibits states to hold cryptocurrency. 

“When we talk about accepting crypto for payments, they would be converted back into dollars for our purposes,” he said, comparing accepting payments in Bitcoin to taking payments made with a credit card, “but with a much lower transaction cost.”

The state was the first in the US to hire a Chief Blockchain Architect. “I think there’s a bright future with regards to how the public sector can benefit from distributed ledgers and the crypto economy,” he said.