New Mexico's Roswell Becomes the First US City to Adopt Bitcoin as Its Reserve Asset

A new report by Bitcoin Magazine highlights how Roswell, New Mexico, has become the first U.S. city to officially integrate Bitcoin into its treasury and launch a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

The city, famously known for its alleged UFO landings, is now on a mission to collect more BTC, kicking off the initiative with a donation of 3,050,323 satoshis (approximately 0.0305 BTC). This donation, valued at around $2,906 at the time, will serve as "seed money" for the city's Bitcoin reserve.

According to a recent report by Benzinga, Roswell is aiming to collect more Bitcoin through donations, sponsorships, and other avenues over the next 10 years.

The city's councilors will then allocate any BTC over $1 million to the "Bitcoin emergency fund." From this fund, 21% of the total can be used by the city once every five years for various priorities, such as subsidizing water bills for senior citizens in Roswell or supporting emergency disaster response efforts. However, any spending from this fund will require the unanimous approval of the City Council.

The report by Bitcoin Magazine comes as the city of Roswell is making headlines for another reason. As local news outlet KRQE reports, members of the Crypto Advisory Committee have been presenting their recommendations to the city council.

Among those present was Director Bo Hines, who spoke about the importance of adopting Bitcoin and praised former President Donald Trump's crypto policies.

"President Trump was the one who started pushing for this. He put it in his executive order in 2018, and he said that the U.S. should be the leader in blockchain technology," said Hines.

"We're still waiting for the administration to follow through on that. But President Trump was the one who started it, and he was the one who put America on the path to becoming a leader in blockchain technology."

Several countries around the world are currently considering adopting Bitcoin as a reserve asset. The topic of crypto was also on the agenda at the recent G20 meeting.