New Hampshire City Lets Residents Pay with BTC
Each day, cryptocurrencies encroach a little further into terrain traditionally ruled by fiat. Residents of Portsmouth, New Hampshire are seeing this in no uncertain terms, now that the city has started accepting bill payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
It was the city’s Mayor Deaglan McEachern who proposed the idea to Portsmouth officials.
“There’s waves of new things that are going to affect us in terms of our future that use the type of technology used in cryptocurrency,” said McEachern. “I want to make sure Portsmouth is not waiting around to see how this is going to affect us in the future, because it’s already affecting us.”
The change won’t impact the city’s monetary practices, since payments received in cryptocurrency will be immediately converted to US dollars.
Portsmouth’s move is the latest in a chain of US crypto adoption on the state level. While the US is without a nationwide, congress-backed framework for cryptocurrency and digital assets, states have taken it upon themselves to lead the way.
Colorado and Wyoming have both passed legislation allowing for residents to pay taxes in crypto. This week, Florida followed suit and announced that officials are working on a similar plan to receive tax payments in crypto.