Florida lawmakers are advancing a proposal that would allow the state to create a strategic cryptocurrency reserve, narrowing earlier efforts to a framework that would effectively limit holdings to Bitcoin.
According to Florida’s legislative records, Senate Bill (SB) 1038, sponsored by Republican Senator Joe Gruters, was filed on Dec. 30 and was referred to the Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government on Wednesday, where it must clear hearings and votes before advancing to the Senate floor.
The bill would establish a Florida Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve, managed by the state’s chief financial officer (CFO), which would allow the office to purchase, hold, manage and liquidate cryptocurrency under a standard similar to those governing public trust assets.
While the legislation does not explicitly cite Bitcoin (BTC), it restricts eligible purchases to crypto that maintained an average market cap of at least $500 billion in the last two years, a threshold that only Bitcoin meets.
A Senate-led attempt after broader efforts stalled
The new Senate proposal follows and significantly diverges from Florida’s earlier attempts to authorize state-level crypto investments.
On Oct. 17, 2025, Republican Party Representative Webster Barnaby filed House Bill (HB) 183, which sought to allow the state and certain public entities to invest up to 10% of their funds in a broad range of digital assets, including Bitcoin, crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), crypto securities, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other blockchain-based products.
HB 183 was a revised version of HB 487, which was withdrawn in June after failing to advance out of a House operations subcommittee. While Barnaby’s revised proposal added stricter custody, documentation and fiduciary standards, the broad asset scope and potential exposure of pension and trust funds faced pushback from lawmakers.
SB 1038 removes pension and retirement funds entirely and places oversight directly under the CFO through a standalone reserve structure.
Its market-cap eligibility rule mirrors approaches adopted in states like New Hampshire and Texas, both of which enacted more narrowly defined Bitcoin reserve frameworks in 2025.
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What’s next in the legislative process?
SB 1038 is contingent on companion legislation establishing the necessary trust-fund mechanics for the reserve. This means it cannot take effect unless related bills are also enacted during the same legislative session.
A House companion measure, HB 1039, was also filed, signaling coordinated Senate and House backing.
If the legislation advances, the CFO would be mandated to submit reports to legislative leaders starting in December 2026, detailing the reserve’s holdings, value and management actions.
Whether the proposal advances will depend on whether lawmakers view the narrower, Bitcoin-focused structure as sufficiently distinct from earlier efforts that failed to gain traction.
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