Californian Governor Jerry Brown recently passed bill AB129 which legalizes digital currencies and alternative currencies for transactions within the state. The previous prohibition on alternative currencies was primarily targeted towards fraudulent or competitive national currencies. However, the recent emergence of crypto-currencies along with several point based currencies brought the rationality of the previous legislation into question.
As opposed to laws such as the proposed “BitLicense” attempting to restrict or monitor Bitcoin use, AB129 is actually intended to remove any legal loopholes preventing the use of Bitcoin for transactions. As of this bill going in to effect, California is now one of the most Bitcoin-friendly states in terms of legislation. This could be beneficial to the local economy, considering that Silicon Valley houses 32 of the 48 venture-capital-backed Bitcoin companies in the United States.
