Texas Names Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee as State Eyes Direct Bitcoin Custody

Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock on Thursday announced the members of the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee, a newly created body tasked with guiding the state’s management, custody, and valuation of bitcoin holdings.

The committee was established under Senate Bill 21, passed by the 89th Texas Legislature and signed into law on June 22, 2025 — making Texas one of the most prominent states in the nation to move forward with an operational bitcoin reserve.

“The Legislature gave the Comptroller’s office a clear responsibility to administer the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and that work must be done with transparency, security and strong financial controls,” Hancock said in a statement Thursday. “This advisory committee brings together the kind of expertise needed to help the state carry out that direction carefully, responsibly and in the best interest of Texas taxpayers.”

The five-member committee — which includes Hancock himself — draws on a broad range of financial, legal, and digital asset expertise.

Laurie Dotter, who chairs the Investment Advisory Board for the Employees Retirement System of Texas, brings more than 35 years of investment and governance experience.

Jamie McAvity, founder and CEO of Cormint Data Systems, is a nationally recognized bitcoin miner operating a 130-megawatt facility in Fort Stockton with top efficiency rankings.

Legal scholar Carla Reyes, a professor at Southern Methodist University, currently serves on the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Innovation Advisory Committee and has testified before Congress on blockchain policy.

Rounding out the panel is Gary A. Vecchiarelli, CPA, president and CFO of CleanSpark, who built that company’s institutional-grade $BTC trading desk, yield strategies, and digital asset governance framework.

The office also issued an RFP seeking a qualified crypto custodian to support its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which currently holds about $10 million in exposure via the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), with services covering secure custody, liquidity, and asset management.

The move signals a planned transition from ETF-based exposure to directly custodied Bitcoin within 60 days of contract execution, reflecting a shift toward full ownership, institutional-grade security, and broader crypto asset support over time.

Washington’s own Bitcoin reserve push hits hurdles

Texas’s move comes as the federal government continues working to solidify its own Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — a process that has proven more complicated than initially anticipated.

President Trump signed an executive order on March 6, 2025, directing the Treasury Department to establish a reserve seeded with $BTC already held through criminal and civil asset forfeitures — an estimated 328,372 $BTC, making the U.S. the largest known state holder of $BTC in the world.

The order explicitly bars the Treasury from selling those bitcoin.

However, the path to a formal, codified reserve has faced delays. In January 2026, Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, acknowledged “obscure legal provisions” still needed to be overcome.

By May 2026, Witt signaled that a major legal breakthrough had been reached, saying an announcement on the reserve was imminent.

Legislation to make the reserve permanent is also advancing in Congress. The American Reserves Modernization Act — co-sponsored by Senator Cynthia Lummis and Representative Nick Begich — would authorize the Treasury to purchase up to 200,000 $BTC per year for five years, with holdings locked for a minimum of 20 years.

If passed, the Treasury’s first open-market Bitcoin purchase is projected for Q4 2026.

This post Texas Names Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee as State Eyes Direct Bitcoin Custody first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.