Texas bill would let cities and counties invest up to $10M each in Bitcoin
Texas Representative Ron Reynolds pre-filed House Bill 815 on November 10, 2026, to allow municipalities and counties to invest up to $10 million of their funds in Bitcoin starting September 1, 2027.
The proposal targets the Public Funds Investment Act, the law that governs where Texas public entities can park taxpayer money. Currently, crypto is not on the list of permissible investments.
HB 815 would add Bitcoin and other crypto assets to that list. It would not force any local government to buy anything, but would simply give them the option to do so.
The bill is the first filed for the 90th Texas Legislature, which is set to convene on January 12, 2027. If passed, the new authority would take effect on September 1, 2027.
State reference and previous attempts
HB 815 draws its definitions from Senate Bill 21, the 2025 law that created the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The state itself holds approximately $10 million in Bitcoin exposure through the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust.
However, HB 815 leaves out several key guardrails from SB 21, including a market cap threshold and custody regulations. It also lacks rules on how losses would be handled.
This is not the first attempt to bring crypto into public treasuries. In 2025, House Bill 4258 aimed to set broader provisions covering state funds but did not pass. HB 815 is a scaled-back sequel that focuses only on cities and counties and caps exposure at a fixed dollar figure.
Local implementation and next steps
School districts are excluded from the new authority. Cities and counties that choose to use it would need to revise their investment policies before moving any money.
Without custody or loss-handling rules in the bill, each local government would largely be designing its own safeguards. This creates uneven risk across the state, and taxpayers in different counties could end up with very different levels of protection.
There are several milestones to watch. The first is committee assignment once the session opens in January 2027. The second is whether amendments add the custody and market cap provisions that SB 21 included but HB 815 left out. The third is the effective date itself. Even in a best-case scenario for supporters, September 1, 2027, is the earliest any Texas city or county could legally start buying.
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