Florida's Bitcoin Reserve Dies as Texas Elects a Backer

A Governor's Promise Meets a Senator's Vote

Texas signed its reserve into law in June 2025. Byron Donalds, now Florida's governor-elect, has pitched a reserve of his own. Florida has yet to sign one into law²⁸. James Talarico, Texas's incoming U.S. senator, cast a vote for his state's reserve back when he held a different job. Saylor's post treats both records the same way. The records differ.

Donalds beat David Jolly for Florida's governor's office on Nov. 3, 2026, becoming the first Black Republican elected governor in American history⁵. He ran this year on a Bitcoin platform, among other planks, and called Bitcoin "a commodity-like hedge against monetary policy" on the campaign trail. His pitch skipped the bill number, funding source, custody plan and timeline a Florida reserve would need⁸. Talarico's Senate campaign against Ken Paxton ran on economic issues and corruption instead. News coverage of that race carries zero mention of Bitcoin from either candidate⁷. The "backer" label in Texas traces to a vote cast 18 months before this election, a fact his own campaign skipped.

What Texas Actually Bought

Texas's reserve exists because the Legislature passed Senate Bill 21, and Gov. Greg Abbott signed it on June 22, 2025². The Texas House passed SB 21 by a vote of 101 to 42 on May 21, 2025. James Talarico voted for it, a fact the official House Journal records under Record Vote 3153⁴. Five months after Abbott's signature, the state spent $5 million buying shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust³. The fund trades under the ticker IBIT and tracks Bitcoin's price. Lee Bratcher, chair of the Texas Blockchain Association, announced the purchase. He said the state aims to hold $10 million in Bitcoin total. Some of that would move into direct custody, held outside any fund. KuCoin's news desk called the purchase the first official Bitcoin position any U.S. state government has taken. That claim rests on a short list: only Texas, Arizona and New Hampshire have a Bitcoin reserve law of any kind.

SB 21 built in oversight alongside the money. A five-member advisory committee guides how the Comptroller invests the fund³. The law also requires a public report on its holdings every two years. That structure sits with the Comptroller's office, a separate elected post from the governor's. The Legislature wrote the law, and the Legislature is the body that could unwind it. Hinojosa's win over Abbott on Nov. 3 leaves that structure in place for now⁶.

Two Other States Already Said Yes

Texas shares this ground with two other states, even as Florida stays at zero. Arizona and New Hampshire also passed Bitcoin reserve laws before Texas did³. That brings the full count to three states with money actually committed. Each used a different legal path, and each kept the fund small next to a state budget the size of Texas's or Florida's. The pattern across all three favors legislatures that acted fast, while Florida's two attempts moved slowly through committee rooms and died there.

That pattern complicates the bipartisan story on both ends. Three states acting together counts as a real trend, beyond a single outlier. A sample that size still falls short of a national consensus, bipartisan or otherwise. That holds next to the 47 states that have passed zero such law.

Why Florida's Bills Died Twice in One Day

Florida's push began Dec. 30, 2025⁹. The state Senate filed SB 1038 that day, the first of two Bitcoin reserve bills it ran through its 2026 session. Both ultimately failed on the same day, March 13. Senate Bill 1038 cleared the Banking and Insurance Committee by a vote of 10 to 0 on Jan. 28, 2026. It then died in the Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government on March 13. Its House companion, HB 1039, cleared two committees of its own before it ever reached a floor vote. It landed on the chamber's Second Reading Calendar, then died there, also on March 13¹⁰. Sen. Joe Gruters sponsored the Senate version; Rep. John Snyder sponsored the House one. A unanimous committee vote, twice over, still left both bills short of the governor's desk.

Donalds carries his own paper trail on this question, and it runs cold too. He introduced H.R. 2112 in Congress on March 14, 2025⁸¹¹. It would turn a White House executive order on a federal Bitcoin reserve into law. The House Financial Services Committee received it that day. It has sat there, unvoted, for a year and a half.

The Case for Bipartisan Bitcoin, and Against It

Saylor's framing found quick support. David Schamis, chief executive of Hyperliquid Strategies and a founding partner at Atlas Merchant Capital, read the results the same way. “I really hope that one of the quiet undertones of this election is that crypto is no longer a partisan issue,” Schamis said². On his telling, a Republican governor-elect and a Democratic senator-elect both touching Bitcoin policy is itself the story. That holds regardless of what either man's campaign actually said out loud.

Peter Schiff reads the same election differently. The economist, a longtime Bitcoin critic, posted his own verdict hours after Saylor's. “Of all the market reactions to the Democratic landslide, the Bitcoin rally is the most irrational. A Democratic Congress will take a hostile stance against crypto, which will get worse in 2028 when they have the White House and all the Bitcoin in the Strategic Reserve gets sold,” Schiff wrote¹². He was writing about the federal reserve, a separate fund from Texas's, but his point cuts the same way. A sweep this lopsided, he argues, points toward a party turning on crypto rather than two parties agreeing on it.

Both readings can point to real facts and still miss each other. Talarico's yes vote on SB 21 is real and on the record, cast before his campaign ever mentioned Bitcoin. Schiff's prediction about a future sell-off is just that, a prediction. It rests on a Congress that has left the federal reserve untouched either way. The one number that is settled today is the $5 million Texas has already spent.

By the numbers

• $5 million: Texas's Bitcoin purchase through BlackRock's IBIT fund, completed Nov. 20, 2025³.
• $0: Florida's Bitcoin reserve purchases to date, after both its 2026 bills died⁹¹⁰.
• 101 to 42: the Texas House vote that passed SB 21 on May 21, 2025, with Talarico voting yes⁴.
• 16,640 likes and 491 replies: the count on Saylor's post, as of 23:50 UTC on Nov. 4, 2026¹.
• $80,494.80: Bitcoin's price at 23:50 UTC on Nov. 4, 2026, per CoinGecko¹³.
• 18 months: the gap between Talarico's SB 21 vote and the election Saylor cited as proof of his support⁴⁷.
• 3 states: Texas, Arizona and New Hampshire, the only ones with a Bitcoin reserve law funded on the books³.

What to watch

Look for the Texas Comptroller to report on progress toward the $10 million target Bratcher described³. Watch for Hinojosa to state a position once she takes office in January 2027⁶. Florida's 2027 legislative session could bring a third attempt at SB 1038's idea⁸⁹. This time the pitch would come from a governor who actually campaigned for it, rather than a colleague in Congress. A vote either way would settle more than another post on X.

Sources

1. Michael Saylor, post on X, Nov. 4, 2026, https://x.com/saylor/status/2117943215949038003
2. TFTC Newsdesk, "Saylor: 2026 Midterms Prove Bitcoin Reserve Is Bipartisan," TFTC, Nov. 4, 2026, https://www.tftc.io/bitcoin-reserve-bipartisan-saylor-florida-texas-midterms-2026
3. KuCoin News, "Texas allocates $5M to buy BlackRock's IBIT ETF, launches state-level Bitcoin reserve," KuCoin, Nov. 20, 2025, https://www.kucoin.com/news/flash/texas-allocates-5m-to-buy-blackrock-s-ibit-etf-launches-state-level-bitcoin-reserve
4. Texas House of Representatives, House Journal, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, Day 69, Record Vote 3153, May 21, 2025, https://journals.house.texas.gov/HJRNL/89R/HTML/89RDAY69FINAL.HTM
5. Matt Dixon, "Byron Donalds wins Florida governor's race, to become first Black Republican elected governor in U.S. history," NBC News, Nov. 3, 2026, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/byron-donalds-florida-governor-win-gop-first-black-leader-jolly-rcna603345
6. Kayla Guo, Taylor Goldenstein, Terri Langford, "Gina Hinojosa defeats Gov. Greg Abbott, ending decades of Republican control of Texas governor's office," The Texas Tribune, Nov. 3, 2026, https://www.texastribune.org/2026/11/03/texas-governor-greg-abbott-gina-hinojosa-election/
7. Gabby Birenbaum, Kayla Guo, "James Talarico defeats Ken Paxton, giving Democrats their first U.S. Senate win in Texas since 1988," The Texas Tribune, via KSAT, Nov. 3, 2026, https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2026/11/04/james-talarico-defeats-ken-paxton-giving-democrats-their-first-us-senate-win-in-texas-since-1988/
8. Riza Dagoc, "Byron Donalds Pitches Florida Bitcoin (BTC) Reserve in Governor Race," TokenPost, Oct. 24, 2026, https://www.tokenpost.com/news/regulation/40010
9. The Florida Senate, "CS/SB 1038: Florida Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve," bill history, https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2026/1038
10. The Florida Senate, "CS/CS/HB 1039: Establishment and Administration of a State Cryptocurrency Reserve," bill history, https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2026/1039
11. U.S. Government Publishing Office, H.R.2112, 119th Congress, https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr2112ih
12. Peter Schiff, post on X, Nov. 4, 2026, https://x.com/PeterSchiff/status/2118013365008334921
13. CoinGecko, Bitcoin (BTC) price page, retrieved Nov. 5, 2026, https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin