California Legislature Amends Bill to Allow Cryptocurrencies

A lot of news organizations, Reddit posts, and Tweets are getting this wrong. I’ve seen over and over again the title “California House Unanimously Passes Law to Make Cryptocurrency “Legal Tender”

This is a blatantly false and misleading title. “Legal Tender” has a very specific meaning to governments, and that is not what the California legislature voted on. Crypto-currencies are not “legal tender” in California, or anywhere, to my knowledge. That is specifically pointed out in the text of the bill where it states “..prohibit{ing} a person from being required to accept alternative currency.”

So- what did they do?, you might ask. It’s pretty simple. They changed and clarified the law (Section 107 of the Corporations Code) so that it is not ILLEGAL to pay for goods or services with alternative currency. Yup, before this law was passed, it was essentially illegal to collect those supermarket points you’ve been hoarding. Basically California is updating it’s archaic law to conform with the 21st century. Before this, it WAS technically illegal to accept Bitcoin, Dogecoin, or any other alternative form of currency.

Phew, glad that was all cleared up!

This is a very historic and important ruling for California, and it may pave the way for other states, governments, and countries to welcome the inevitable future that is digital currency. Remember Russia “Banning Cryptocurrency” last week? Go look again, it’s a very similar situation, they were merely establishing the Ruble as “legal tender”. You can’t ban cryptocurrency! That’s like trying to erase a photo from the internets!

Here’s a link to the text of the actual bill AB-129. It’s two pages a very easy read.

Here’s a site where they actually got the story right! via bitcoin Magazine