Hawaii's lawmakers have introduced a bill that, if eventually passed, would allow banks to offer crypto custody services.
The bill, dubbed SB2594 and introduced on Jan 18, aims to allow the country's banking institutions to store "digital securities," "virtual currencies," "digital consumer assets" and other "open blockchain tokens."
If this were not enough, the proposed law would authorize Hawaii's courts to address any claims related to digital assets, which would provide users with some protection.
It must be noted that US companies already face a lot of problems when dealing with cryptos. For example, in New York, any company interested in offering crypto-related services must receive the popular BitLicense from the regulator, whose approval is subject to very strict requirements.
However, the situation is even worse in Hawaii, where even crypto-focused money services have real problems to operate because the Hawaii Division of Financial Institutions forces entities with a crypto license to store fiat money reserves equivalent to the cryptos they offer. This requirement forced Coinbase to cease its operations in the state back in 2017.
While this new bill does not eliminate the need for fiat money reserves, it would provide some legal clarity for the country's banks.
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