After passing through both the House of Representatives and the Senate, a bill seeking to control Bitcoin mining activities in the state of Arkansas is now headed to the governor’s office for approval.
The Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023, which is the proposed legislation, aims to control the Bitcoin mining market in the US state, establish rules for miners, and shield them from unfair rules and taxes. According to the Act’s status page, the bill was swiftly passed by the Arkansas State Legislature after Senator Joshua Bryant submitted it on March 30. The letter acknowledges “that data centers create jobs, pay taxes, and provide general economic value to local communities.”
A digital asset miner must “pay applicable taxes and government fees in acceptable forms of currency, and operate in a manner that causes no stress on an electric public utility’s generation capabilities or transmission network.” according to the legislation passed.
Under the law, cryptocurrency miners will be accorded the same privileges as data centers. The proposed legislation states that the state of Arkansas “impose a different requirement for a digital asset mining business than is applicable to any requirement for a data center.”
The action in Arkansas follows a similar plan in Montana. A bill intended to safeguard cryptocurrency miners operating in the state was approved by the Montana Senate at the end of March. This measure aims to safeguard miners from taxes on digital assets used for payments and reduce energy tariffs that are unfair to both home cryptocurrency miners and enterprises that deal with digital assets.
Texas takes a different stance than the other states. A bill that would essentially remove incentives for miners working under the state’s crypto-friendly regulatory framework was approved by the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce on April 4, according to Cointelegraph.
