TL;DR:
- Texas published a request for proposals to hire a custodian that will transfer its strategic Bitcoin reserve from BlackRock’s ETF to direct custody.
- The state allocated $10 million to the reserve and requires the winning firm to complete the transition from IBIT to self-custodied BTC within 60 days.
- Kelly Hancock also announced the four members of the advisory committee that will oversee the reserve’s governance.
Texas published a request for proposals to hire a custody and liquidity provider to transfer its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve from BlackRock‘s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to self-custodied coins held directly at the state level.
Until now, the state had used that ETF on a transitional basis to channel the $10 million allocated to the reserve. The tender document specifies that the selected firm will have 60 days from the signing of the contract to complete the migration from IBIT to Bitcoin held directly in custody, moving from indirect exposure to real onchain ownership.
The Requirements to Become a Custodian
The winning firm will be required to acquire, custody, manage and report on the state’s digital assets, potentially including other large-cap cryptocurrencies in addition to Bitcoin. The proposal also demands institutional-grade security controls, standard and custom reporting, and the creation of a public website displaying the volume and value of Texas’s holdings in real time.
Texas and Bitcoin: A Reserve as State Policy
The announcement of the tender was accompanied by a statement from acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, who also introduced the members of Texas’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee. The panel is composed of investment executive Laurie Dotter, Cormint Data Systems founder and CEO Jamie McAvity, Southern Methodist University law professor and digital assets scholar Carla Reyes, and CleanSpark president and chief financial officer Gary Vecchiarelli.
The committee will advise on custody arrangements, risk management, and the reporting of results to the Legislature, as well as on the reserve’s overall investment strategy. The backers of the law that created this fund argue that Bitcoin, alongside other high-cap cryptocurrencies, can serve as a hedge against inflation and long-term economic volatility.
According to the latest CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $72,900 with no change over the past 24 hours. Its volume fell 29% to approximately $30 billion.
