The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, has announced the US state will start accepting crypto for tax payments by the end of this summer.
Polis made the comments as the state hosts its annual ETHDenver conference, which claims to be the largest and longest-running Ethereum event in the world.
Polis said: “For consumer convenience, we want to accept payment in a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, just as we do in credit cards, but of course, the transaction cost is a lot less for cryptos.”
The governor added: “We don’t want to take the speculative risk of holding crypto, so we will be having a transactional layer there.”
Polis further explained that Colorado is currently looking for companies that can help accept crypto transactions.
Pro-crypto governor
Polis is well known as a crypto advocate. In 2014, while a Colorado congressman, he became one of the first US politicians to accept campaign donations in bitcoin (BTC). In 2021 he also discussed the idea of residents in Colorado being able to pay their taxes in crypto.
Polis says he is “counting” Colorado at the centre of the crypto economy and claims that Colorado was the first state in the US to “hire a very senior blockchain architect at our technical office”.
The governor added that the state has a major initiative in blockchain and agriculture that “they are very excited about”.
California the ‘most crypto ready’ US state
In September 2021, California was named the ‘most crypto-ready state’ in the US.
The rankings have been awarded by research from the site Crypto Head, which describes itself as “a platform that allows both new and experienced users to learn about the crypto industry and make informed decisions”.
However, following the news coming out of Colorado, the ‘most crypto-ready state’ in the US could have a new entry for 2022.
The state of California received a score of 5.72 out of 10, beating second-placed New Jersey with a score of 5.44 out of 10. California received the highest score due to there being “977 Google crypto-related searches per 100,000 people and 2,473 crypto ATMs, both of which are national highs, but no state-specific legislation”.
Texas came third, Florida fourth and New York fifth.
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