Texas Closes Legislative Session Without Penning Crypto Policy

The mining bill that flew through the Texas state senate might be on pause until 2025

article-image

lev radin/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Texas closed its regular legislative session Monday, leaving crypto bills in limbo for potentially 19 months. 

Texas is one of four states on a biennial legislature schedule, meaning state lawmakers only meet for regular sessions every other year. The next regular session is scheduled for Jan. 14, 2025. 

A Texas Senate bill aimed to nix tax breaks for miners and crack down on energy usage is one of the legislative matters left unresolved. The Senate passed the bill unanimously in early April before it was referred to committee in the House. The House did not vote on it before closing the session. 

The Senate Bill, number 1751, was sponsored by three Republican state senators and drew criticism from crypto advocates in the area

Kristine Cranley, director of business development at Texas Blockchain Council, said in an April 1 tweet the bill placed an “arbitrary cap” on miners, causing the cost of grid stabilizing services to increase. 

A second crypto bill made it further in the legislative process, but still has yet to become law. House Bill 1666, which would require exchanges to hold reserves high enough to at least cover any obligations to customers, passed the House in April and the Senate in May. 

It was sent to Governor Greg Abbott on May 22. Abbott has 20 days to sign or veto, if no action is taken the bill becomes law without a signature. 

Crypto-related policies are not the only bills lawmakers failed to finalize before Monday’s deadline. High-profile proposals to use a budget surplus to fund property tax cuts and ramp up border security also did not make it over the finish line. 

Governor Abbott has the power to reconvene lawmakers for a Special Session, which he did late Monday evening to focus on property tax and border security policy. 

“Many critical items remain that must be passed,” Abbott said in a statement Monday. 

Abbott did not mention any crypto policy in his Monday statement opening the Special Session, although further gatherings could be called before January 2025. 
After the close of the regular session in 2021, Abbott called for three special sessions, each lasting around 30 days, which is the max for special sessions, and intended to address between 10 and 20 topics.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (8).png

Research

Meta-aggregators like Titan and Kamino Swap improve price execution for users, making the Solana swapping landscape more competitive. Jupiter has incorporated meta-aggregation features into its latest routing engine to keep users on its front end (own the user, own the flow). At large, teams are treating swaps as a commoditized complement, offering incredibly cheap or free swaps to own the end-user and increase demand for high-margin product offerings (multi-product DeFi). On another note, the divergence in the concentration of aggregator volume between DEXs suggests increased specialization at the DEX layer by asset type.

article-image

Many community banks and credit unions feel like they missed the fintech craze — and they don’t want to miss stablecoins

article-image

BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein noted that the firm had been looking into crypto since 2017

article-image

With the June FOMC meeting coming up, the Fed remains unlikely to cut interest rates. Is this the right move?

article-image

The crypto-optional shooter is expected to release on Steam in a few weeks

article-image

The new airdrop campaign reaches 50,000 users, setting the stage for Spark’s 10-year token distribution