Proposed Pro-Bitcoin Legislation

A “Digital Bill of Rights” that protects the right of individuals to use, hold, self-custody, and move digital assets, and to run and build the networks behind them. It limits unnecessary state and local government restrictions and keeps the state from picking winners among technologies, to foster adoption, innovation, and individual financial freedom in Illinois.

• Prohibits state and local governments from restricting the acceptance of digital assets as payment for legal goods and services.
• Protects the right to self-custody: to hold your own digital assets in your own hardware or self-hosted wallet, and to move your assets freely.
• Bars the state from seizing, freezing, or forcing the surrender of your assets or private keys without a warrant, court order, or other lawful process.
• Protects your private keys. Government, including police and prosecutors, can’t ask for or demand your keys outside that process. It can’t require wallet makers to build in back doors or keep copies of keys. It can’t make you register a personal wallet or limit transfers into or out of one.
• Protects the right to run and build the network: anyone can operate a node or write, publish, and use the software behind these networks without a special license. Publishing code is not the same as holding someone else’s money.
• Keeps the state technology-neutral: state and local governments may not favor or disfavor any particular network, technology, or digital asset.
• Clarifies that people running nodes or developing software aren’t treated as money-transmitting businesses.
• Keeps Illinois free of a central bank digital currency (CBDC): state and local governments may not accept, require, or help pilot a federal CBDC.
• Protects public trust by prohibiting state and local officials from launching memecoins while in office.
• Builds on Illinois’s existing Digital Assets and Consumer Protection Act by emphasizing user rights, while leaving consumer-protection oversight intact.