Colorado Gov. Jay Polis says his state will allow residents to pay their taxes in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin starting this summer as cities and states across the country struggle to become the nation’s “crypto capital.”
Polis says the payments will go through an intermediary who will convert the rapidly changing digital currencies into US dollars, which can be deposited with the state treasury and actually used to pay for things.
One bitcoin currently costs $ 43,802.80, down from more than $ 67,000 in November.
“It’s kind of like credit card payments, with the bonus of no refunds!” tweets on February 23.
In an interview with CNBC last month, he said he hoped to “implement this for the entire state government” by accepting digital coins for things like driver’s and hunting licenses later this year.
Polis, 46, is a former technology entrepreneur who founded an Internet access company, a flower shop website and a greeting card website in the 1990s. Its net worth was rated at $ 313 million in 2015
Colorado is among a handful of municipalities in the country that hope to become centers for the $ 3.3 trillion cryptocurrency market. The mayors of Miami and New York have announced they will take their first bitcoin checks last year, although the technology has been criticized for its environmental impact.
Colorado Gov. Jay Polis says his state will allow residents to pay their taxes with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin this summer
Digital currencies will go through an intermediary who will convert them into US dollars, which the state can actually use to pay for things, Polis said.
A spokesman for Colorado Governor Polis called the move “the next logical step on the road to digital statehood” in a statement to security guard.
“Governor Polis is proud to lead the effort to create a strong and dynamic crypto ecosystem that puts Colorado at the forefront of digital innovation,” said spokesman Connor Cahill.
The state has even hired a blockchain chief architect, Thaddeus Bath, who works under the IT office.
Crypto transactions are recorded in a blockchain, a public register of transactions and balances, which keeps the identity of users anonymous.
Denver, the state capital, is hosting an annual conference called ETHDenver, a two-week hack-a-tone that drew 13,000 people this year, according to CNBC.
Polis spoke with With cable for his crypto ambitions for Colorado.
“It’s symbolic of sending a message that yes, this is a form of payment we accept that is validated by the state of Colorado, just as we accept credit card payments for many purposes,” he said.
Polis even proposed moving the state’s cattle brand system to a public blockchain.
He noted that the current system, which monitors which brands belong to which ranch, is subject to registration with a distributed register with tracking information, with access to records and transactions.
“The distributed book method is one that can reduce transaction costs, improve security and enable people to get the information they need when they need it – including law enforcement, which will no longer be needed. “to consult with someone from the Colorado Department of Agriculture, but they would have access to what they need when they need it, and nothing more, nothing less,” he told Wired.
The governor’s ambitions for cryptocurrency reflect those of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who called the crypto “incredibly important for the city’s future” in an interview with NPR.
The city unveiled its own MiamiCoin last year, with 30 percent of the proceeds going to city initiatives, according to Miami Herald.
Last year, the leading crypto website Blockchain.com moved its headquarters there from New York.
“This is the door to Latin America,” Peter Smith, founder and CEO of the website, told NPR. – Located in the time zone of the East Coast. And more importantly, it’s probably the most exciting crypto city in the world right now.
Polis, 46, is a former technology entrepreneur with a net worth of $ 313 million in 2015.
Pictured: Graph showing the amount of energy in terawatt hours (TWh) consumed by technology giants, electric vehicles and bitcoin mining (lower, central and upper limits). The bar, second from the right, shows the current annual consumption of bitcoins, which at March 3 was 130.9 terawatt hours (TWh), roughly the same as New Zealand and Argentina
But the process of earning cryptocurrencies is being monitored by environmentalists because of its huge use of energy.
The new units of digital currency are created through a process called “mining”, in which computers have to solve complex mathematical equations to update the “blocks” in the blockchain and verify transactions.
The “miners” themselves are then rewarded with cryptocurrency.
The most successful miners use multiple high-end graphics cards to process multiple equations at once, according to PC Magwhich requires a lot of electricity and cooling power as the machines tend to heat up.
A study of the British financial site MoneySuperMarket found that each bitcoin transaction consumed 1,173 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or the amount of energy that could “power a typical American home for six weeks.”
Each transaction costs about $ 173 for electricity, the study found.
Governor Polis founded American Information Systems at Princeton University in 1993.
The company provides Internet services to students who wanted to keep their access after graduation, when the Internet was not a widespread consumer service.
It sold for more than $ 22 million, according to Denver Post. He and his father later started a separate e-card business, which sold for $ 780 million in 1999.
In 2005, he sold another business, the parent company of his online florist ProFlowers, for $ 477 million.
Polis became America’s first openly gay governor when he took office in 2019.