# Final Report of the Commission to Study Stable Tokens, Tokenized Real-World Assets, and Blockchain-based Trusts *Submitted pursuant to RSA 383:26, IV* ## 0. Front matter ### Letter of transmittal *To be added after adoption.* ### Adoption record *To be added after adoption.* ### Disclaimer The findings and recommendations in this report are those of the Commission. They do not necessarily reflect the views of any member's employer, agency, or appointing authority. ### Members of the Commission | Member | Seat under RSA 383:26, II | |---|---| | Rep. Keith Ammon, Chair (Hillsborough 42) | House member, appointed by the Speaker | | Rep. Jim Kofalt, Vice Chair (Hillsborough 32) | House member, appointed by the Speaker | | Rep. Chris McAleer (Carroll 2) | House member, appointed by the Speaker | | Sen. Tara Reardon (District 15) | Senate member, appointed by the Senate President | | Sen. Daryl Abbas (District 22) | Senate member, appointed by the Senate President | | Michael Moranti, Deputy Commissioner of Banking | Banking Commissioner's designee | | Brandon Garod, Senior Assistant Attorney General | Attorney General's designee | | Katie Taylor, Staff Attorney, Bureau of Securities Regulation | Secretary of State's designee | | Jim Kisch, President and CEO, Passumpsic Bank | New Hampshire banking industry representative | | Andy Schwab | Blockchain industry representative | | Dan Nuñez Cohen, Head of Policy, Crypto.com | Blockchain industry representative | | Prof. Seth Oranburg, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law | Academic member | ### Authority The Commission was established by HB 310 (2025), codified as RSA 383:26. RSA 383:26 provided for its own repeal on November 1, 2026, the deadline for this report. ## 1. Executive summary **New Hampshire should act now, and it should aim to lead.** It will not be first: Wyoming already issues its own token, and other states have enacted stablecoin laws (§5.1). It cannot lead by being looser, because federal certification requires state rules at least as protective as federal ones (§4.1). It can lead by building on what it has: a constitutional right to live free from governmental intrusion in private information (Article 2-b); a money transmitter exemption for convertible virtual currency; a commercial code that governs controllable electronic records and excludes government electronic currency from money; a DAO law, a blockchain dispute docket, and protections for self-custody, node operation, mining, and staking; a trust industry that has drawn firms from out of state; and a state bankers association that has joined a bank-owned payments network in development (§5.2). Under the GENIUS Act (July 18, 2025), a state may supervise stablecoin issuers with up to $10 billion in circulation if its regime is certified as "substantially similar," and an issuer licensed by a certified state may operate nationwide (§4.1). State submissions are initially due January 18, 2028 (Conference of State Bank Supervisors, or CSBS, March 10). After twelve public meetings, the Commission recommends three bills for 2027, aimed at that deadline. ### Three bills for 2027 | Bill | What it does | Recommendations | Committees | |---|---|---|---| | A. Certification and consumer trust | A certifiable stablecoin issuer framework with protections beyond the federal floor, clear rules for freezes and recalls, tokenized deposits, a safe harbor for builders, and an independent Office of Financial Innovation | 1 to 7 | House Commerce and Consumer Affairs; Senate Commerce | | B. Tokenized real-world assets | A change-of-control test for the real estate transfer tax, on-chain ownership registers, and securities guidance | 8 | House Ways and Means and Commerce and Consumer Affairs; Senate Ways and Means and Commerce | | C. Privacy in digital money | Extends the Right to Privacy Act to digital money, sets the showing for state access and freezes, limits state use of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), and guarantees payment choice | 9 | House and Senate Judiciary | Bill A must pass in 2027 for New Hampshire to certify on time; Bills B and C stand on their own and cannot delay it. Recommendations 10, 12, and 13 run through LSR 2027-0239 (§3.4) or a successor body, and Recommendation 11 is agency action. Appendix K maps each bill. ### Findings Each finding is explained in §10. 1. **Federal law now sets the terms for state action.** 2. **The market is large and inconsistently measured.** 3. **Tokens that look alike are legally different.** 4. **States are moving, along several models.** 5. **Bank-led designs can keep deposits local.** 6. **Deposit flight is the most-cited risk, and its size is uncertain.** 7. **A state token and community banks pull in opposite directions.** 8. **Retail holders depend on markets, not redemption.** 9. **Privacy is a design choice, and New Hampshire's Constitution speaks to it.** 10. **Whoever holds the keys controls the token.** 11. **Tokenized real-world assets fit existing law, and New Hampshire can be a home for them.** 12. **Blockchain-based trusts are novel and promising, and the proposal needs refinement.** 13. **New Hampshire has foundations to build on.** 14. **Some questions were not answered.** 15. **Network effects reward scale and connection.** ### Recommendations All recommendations are proposed for Commission vote. Each is explained in §12. | No. | Recommendation | Vehicle | |---|---|---| | 1 | Enact a state stablecoin issuer framework built for federal certification on time, open to New Hampshire trust companies, with fast, funded licensing | Bill A | | 2 | Go beyond the federal floor: redemption at par for every holder, reserve safety, plain disclosure, and a privacy floor for issuers | Bill A | | 3 | Set clear statutory rules for when a token may be monitored, frozen, or reversed | Bill A | | 4 | Confirm that tokenized deposits are deposits, and guide banks joining shared networks | Bill A | | 5 | Give builders a safe harbor and binding answers within 60 days | Bill A | | 6 | Establish an independent Office of Financial Innovation | Bill A | | 7 | Name the Banking Department as regulator and authorize the federal partnerships certification needs | Bill A | | 8 | Make New Hampshire a home for tokenized real-world assets: a change-of-control transfer tax, on-chain ownership registers, and securities guidance | Bill B | | 9 | Extend the Right to Privacy Act to digital money, require a warrant or court order for state access and freezes, limit a retail CBDC, and guarantee payment choice | Bill C | | 10 | Give one body the work after RSA 383:26's repeal | LSR 2027-0239 or session law | | 11 | Engage on federal rules and explore interstate cooperation | Agency action | | 12 | Redraft the blockchain-based trusts proposal for the 2028 session | Legislation, after review | | 13 | Study a state token, a tokenized municipal bond pilot, and open questions | Further study | ## 2. Introduction, mandate, and process *This section describes the Commission's charge under RSA 383:26, I to III, and how it did its work.* ### 2.1 Establishment and mandate RSA 383:26 (2025, 177:1, effective July 15, 2025) established the Commission to Study Stable Tokens, Tokenized Real-World Assets, and Blockchain-based Trusts Frameworks "to study the creation of regulatory frameworks for stable tokens, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), and blockchain-based trusts in New Hampshire." The statute directs the Commission to study and make recommendations regarding: > (a) The current landscape of stable token, tokenized RWA, and blockchain-based trust regulation within and outside New Hampshire. > (b) Legal, regulatory, financial, and technological considerations for a state-level regulatory framework. > (c) Best practices and ongoing regulatory efforts from other jurisdictions, including federal jurisdictions, for stable token, RWA, and blockchain-based trust regulation. > (d) Potential benefits and risks associated with the adoption of stable token, RWA, tokenization, and blockchain-based trust frameworks in New Hampshire. > (e) Mechanisms for consumer protection, privacy concerns, environmental protection, and risk management. > (f) Economic opportunities related to blockchain technology and digital assets, including fostering innovation and job creation. RSA 383:26, IV required this report by November 1, 2026, the date the statute set for its own repeal. Sections 3 to 8 take the six subparagraphs in order, §9 treats trusts, and §10 to §13 give findings, reasons, recommendations, and a conclusion. ### 2.2 Membership The statute provides for twelve members: three House members, two Senators, the Banking Commissioner, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General (or their designees), and four gubernatorial appointees (two blockchain industry representatives, one New Hampshire banker with digital-asset experience, and one academic). Five members are a quorum (RSA 383:26, III). The roster and the roll-call adoption vote appear in the front matter. ### 2.3 Meetings The Commission met twelve times in public in Concord, at 1 Granite Place and at the New Hampshire Banking Department, 53 Regional Drive, from September 17, 2025 to September 17, 2026. Several meetings offered Microsoft Teams access; the public attended, asked questions, and once presented. The Commission met on October 15, 2026 to review this report in draft and on October 29, 2026 to adopt it. Appendix J lists each meeting's date, presenters, and topics. ### 2.4 Public record Agendas, materials, video, and minutes are on the Commission's public portal. Teams did not capture the May 4, 2026 video; a lower-resolution video and a transcript are posted, and the minutes were prepared from the transcript. No recording or transcript exists of the August 19, 2026 meeting; its minutes were reconstructed from the agenda, presenters' materials, and the Chair's information, and the report gives it less weight. Appendix B summarizes each presentation; Appendix C holds the minutes. ### 2.5 How to read this report Figures carry their source and date. Facts from outside the record appear only where needed to keep the report accurate and current, each marked **[Outside the record]** with its source. Each section opens by naming the part of RSA 383:26 it answers. Dates without a year are 2026. Terms are defined in Appendix D; token types are compared in §3.1. **Limits of the record.** Most presenters were companies or trade groups with a stake in the outcome; Appendix M lists their interests. No independent economist, consumer advocate, or federal supervisor testified, and the most sustained skeptical presentation came from a member of the public (Parker Feld, May 4). The report therefore cites federal law to the statute where it matters, notes each presenter's interest, and recommends study where the record is thin. ### 2.6 Relationship to the 2022 Commission The 2022 Commission on Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets (Executive Order 2022-1, chaired by William Ardinger) reported on December 21, 2022 with three findings and twelve recommendations. The Chair and Andy Schwab served on both. Presenters built on its work: Ian Huyett's proposed dispute docket drew on a 2022 recommendation (November 12, 2025), and UNH is building the Secretary of State's DAO registry (Chair, September 17, 2026). Two 2022 recommendations have since become law. [Outside the record: General Court bill dockets.] | 2022 recommendation | Status | Authority | |---|---|---| | 5.1 DAO legal enterprise law | Enacted as RSA 301-B. The Secretary of State's registry deadline is January 1, 2027. | HB 645 (2024), Ch. 263; HB 1073 (2026), Ch. 131 | | 5.2 Blockchain dispute docket | Enacted as RSA 491:7-c. The Supreme Court may establish the docket by order; jurisdiction requires the parties' consent. | HB 639 (2026), Ch. 286, effective September 8, 2026 | *Table 2.1. 2022 recommendations since enacted.* The same 2026 act, the Blockchain Basic Laws (RSA 359-V), protects self-custody (RSA 359-V:2) and node operation, mining, and staking (RSA 359-V:3). ## 3. The landscape today *This section answers RSA 383:26, I(a): the current landscape of stable token, tokenized real-world asset, and blockchain-based trust regulation within and outside New Hampshire.* When the 2022 Commission reported, the United States had no federal stablecoin law. The GENIUS Act, signed July 18, 2025, is the first (Chair's year in review, May 4). While this Commission met, the dollar-token market grew (§3.2), Wyoming put the first state-issued stable token into production, and four federal agencies began writing the rules that will decide what a state may do. ```mermaid flowchart TD a["Dec 2022<br/>2022 Commission report approved"] --> b["Jul 2025<br/>HB 310 signed, creating this Commission;<br/>GENIUS Act signed July 18"] b --> c["Sep 2025 to Sep 2026<br/>Twelve Commission meetings"] c --> d["Jan 2026<br/>Wyoming FRNT public launch January 7"] d --> e["Sep 2026<br/>Treasury certification rule September 30"] e --> f["Nov 2026<br/>Commission report due November 1"] f --> g["Jan 2027<br/>GENIUS Act effective no later than January 18"] g --> h["Jan 2028<br/>State framework deadline January 18, per CSBS"] ``` *Figure 1. Key dates. [Outside the record: HB 310 signing date (July 15, 2025, General Court docket); FRNT public launch date (Franklin Templeton release); Treasury interim final rule (91 FR 61688); GENIUS effective date (earlier of January 18, 2027 or 120 days after final rules, per Chapman tracker).] The January 18, 2028 date is from CSBS (March 10).* State models are compared in §5.1, tokenized real-world assets in §8.3, and blockchain-based trusts in §9. ### 3.1 Four tokens that look alike A **stable token** is a digital token built to hold a steady value, usually one U.S. dollar, so it can be used as money on a blockchain. Very different products are "commonly marketed under the 'stablecoin' label" (BitGo's Eugene Hahr, March 10). The record supports a family tree based on who stands behind the token. ```mermaid flowchart LR root["Dollar-like<br/>tokens"] --> ps["<b>Payment stablecoin</b><br/>Issuer holds 1:1 reserves and must redeem at par. Examples: USDC (Circle), USDT (Tether), FIUSD (Fiserv); state-issued FRNT (Wyoming)"] root --> tdep["<b>Tokenized deposit</b><br/>A bank deposit recorded on a blockchain. Examples: JPM Coin, Hazel network (Vantage and Custodia), Fiserv multi-bank tokenized deposit"] root --> mmf["<b>Tokenized money market fund share</b><br/>A share in a registered fund, a security that can pay yield. Examples: Ceres Coin, Lynq settlement shares, BlackRock BUIDL, Franklin Templeton BENJI"] root --> wrap["<b>Wrapped token</b><br/>A token standing in for an asset held elsewhere. Example: WBTC, Bitcoin wrapped on Ethereum (BitGo)"] ``` *Figure 2. The family of dollar-like tokens in the Commission's record (Circle, August 19; Canton, February 10; Vantage, May 13; Fiserv, September 17; Ceres, January 14; Lynq, May 13; Chair, May 4; BitGo, March 10). Wrapped tokens can represent any asset, not only dollars.* | Term | Who issues it | What backs it | Main regulator | Can it pay holders? | |---|---|---|---|---| | Payment stablecoin | Licensed issuer (bank subsidiary or nonbank) | 1:1 cash and high-quality liquid assets | GENIUS regulators or a certified state | No (Circle, August 19) | | Tokenized deposit | A bank | The bank's own deposit liability | Bank regulators; FDIC insured where applicable (Main, May 13) | Yes, like any deposit | | Tokenized money market fund share | A registered fund | Fund holdings, such as Treasuries | SEC | Yes (Ceres, January 14) | | Wrapped token | A custodian or protocol | An asset held elsewhere | Varies | Depends on the asset | *Table 3.1. Controlled vocabulary for this report. BitGo's fiat-backed, asset-backed, algorithmic, and hybrid categories (March 10) describe backing and are a separate axis; GENIUS permits only fully reserved payment stablecoins (Oranburg, February 10).* A payment stablecoin, the kind GENIUS regulates, works through two markets. Institutions with issuer contracts buy and redeem tokens at par; everyone else trades on exchanges. If a token slips to 95 cents, market makers buy it and redeem it at a dollar, restoring the peg. That works only while the issuer can pay and market makers keep their nerve (BitGo, March 10; §7.1). ```mermaid --- config: flowchart: nodeSpacing: 20 rankSpacing: 30 subGraphTitleMargin: top: 6 bottom: 10 --- flowchart TD subgraph primary["Primary market"] d["Dollars sent<br/>to issuer"] --> r["Reserves: cash and<br/>high-quality liquid assets"] r --> m["Issuer mints<br/>tokens 1:1"] back["Tokens returned<br/>to issuer"] --> burn["Issuer burns tokens<br/>and pays dollars at par"] end subgraph secondary["Secondary market"] ex["Exchanges and<br/>decentralized exchanges"] <--> w["Wallets: payments,<br/>trading, DeFi"] end m --> ex ex -->|"arbitrage when<br/>price drifts<br/>from 1 dollar"| back ``` *Figure 3. How a payment stablecoin works. Direct redemption at par is a contractual right of eligible institutions; retail holders rely on market prices (BitGo, March 10; reserve standard per Circle, August 19).* **The technology varies too.** "Public versus permissioned" is a false binary: Hedera runs a public ledger with permissioned validators (December 10, 2025). Interoperability rests on different trust models: LayerZero mints and burns natively across chains, citing about $2.1 billion in industry losses from wrapped-token bridges (April 6); Hazel switches the backing entity (May 13); Fiserv burns one form and issues another (September 17). Self-custody, trust-bank custody, and multi-party signing differ (Schwab, September 17; Anchorage, January 14), and custody of cash reserves is not custody of tokens (Healey, September 17). Freeze and blacklist controls sit in the token contract, not the chain (§7.1), so whoever holds the keys can change outcomes; Wyoming required that it own its contracts and keys outright (LayerZero, April 6). > [!tip] Myth vs. fact > **Myth:** A state stable token is a central bank digital currency. **Fact:** Wyoming's FRNT is a fully reserved token issued by a state commission; no central bank is involved and no new currency is created (Apollo, October 15, 2025). ### 3.2 The market, dated The Chair reported stablecoins in circulation growing from about $240 billion to about $322 billion in the twelve months before May 2026, roughly 34% (May 4); Chainlink cited about $316 billion (April 6). Table 3.2 lists each dated figure. | Stablecoin supply | Source | Date | |---|---|---| | About $240 billion | Chair's year in review (twelve-month start point) | About May 2025, reported May 4, 2026 | | About $300 billion | Fortris | December 10, 2025 | | About $316 billion | Chainlink | April 6, 2026 | | About $322 billion | Chair's year in review (end point) | May 4, 2026 | | About $313 billion | [Outside the record: CoinDesk Research] | End of September 2026 | *Table 3.2. Stablecoin supply as cited to the Commission, by date. Sources measured differently, so the figures are not a single series. The Digital Chamber's $170 billion (November 12, 2025) is omitted as out of date.* The Chair also reported about $33 trillion in on-chain stablecoin transfers in 2025, above combined Visa and Mastercard volume, while cautioning that much of it is trading and arbitrage, not retail payments (May 4). Tokenized real-world assets grew from about $8 billion to about $31 billion in a year, roughly 65% of it U.S. Treasuries (Chair, May 4). ### 3.3 The federal picture The GENIUS Act requires 100% reserves, creates three types of issuer, gives holders priority in failure, and preserves a state pathway (Chair, May 4). Its rules were still being written throughout the Commission's work, and the companion CLARITY Act was not enacted (§4.1; Appendix L). ### 3.4 New Hampshire today New Hampshire has no stablecoin statute. The Secretary of State's DAO registry is to accept USDC or Tether for registration fees, which the Chair called New Hampshire's "first foray into accepting digital assets at the state level" (December 10, 2025). StoneCastle Trust Company, a New Hampshire trust company acquired by Fiserv, holds cash reserves for Fiserv's token products (Healey, September 17). The Business Finance Authority's Bitcoin-collateralized bond is covered in §8.5. [Outside the record: LSR 2027-0200, "regulating the use of stablecoins," prime sponsor Rep. John Hunt, has been filed for 2027; text not yet available. Also filed: LSR 2027-0239, a task force to study emerging technologies and digital innovations in blockchain, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, prime sponsor Rep. John Schneller (General Court LSR search).] ## 4. Legal, regulatory, financial, and technological considerations *This section answers RSA 383:26, I(b): legal, regulatory, financial, and technological considerations for a state-level regulatory framework.* One question organizes this section: what would New Hampshire have to build for a certified state regime under the GENIUS Act, and what happens if it builds nothing? ### 4.1 The legal framework: federal certification is the gate Under the GENIUS Act, licensed nonbanks may issue payment stablecoins directly; banks only through a "firewalled" subsidiary. Issuers above $10 billion in circulation face enhanced federal supervision; smaller issuers may stay under state regulation (Circle, August 19). A state may supervise these "state qualified" issuers only if its regime is certified as "substantially similar" to the federal standard. **What certification buys.** [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 4(c)(3), 4(d), and 7(f).] An issuer licensed by a certified state needs no license from any other state, so a New Hampshire license would work nationwide; host states' consumer protection laws still apply. An issuer that grows past $10 billion moves to joint state and federal supervision but is not required to convert to a federal charter. **Timing.** CSBS told the Commission that January 18, 2028 is the initial deadline for states to submit frameworks (March 10). [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 4(c)(4), 4(c)(7), and 20.] That is the latest it can fall, and New Hampshire will not qualify for expedited review. The realistic path has two tracks: a conditional filing as soon as Treasury accepts filings, and a complete filing once rules are adopted. Recommendation 1 would have the act take effect on passage, with interim rules adopting the federal standards by reference. [Outside the record: under Treasury's interim final rule of September 30, 2026 (91 FR 61688), any filing by January 18, 2028 meets the deadline, even a conditional one; comments are due November 30, 2026 (Recommendation 11).] **What New Hampshire would have to build.** A statutory issuer category, licensing, rules, and examiners able to supervise to the federal standard; the regulator delegation model (§5.1) does the first three by statute and leaves the detail to the regulator (CSBS, March 10). The proposed reserve, redemption, and capital rules of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (Appendix L) are the best signpost, though states keep discretion (CSBS, March 10). Recommendation 7 names the Banking Department as supervisor. > [!note] Rulemaking in place of legislation > The CLARITY Act, which would divide authority over other digital assets between the SEC and the CFTC, was not enacted; the agencies are writing rules covering much of it (Chair, September 17). State law should refer to federal definitions rather than restate them, and the state should track the rulemakings (Recommendation 11). ```mermaid --- config: flowchart: nodeSpacing: 25 rankSpacing: 35 --- flowchart TD iss["Payment stablecoin issuer"] --> size{"More than<br/>10 billion dollars<br/>in circulation?"} size -->|Yes| big["Transition to federal<br/>oversight unless waiver;<br/>state shares jurisdiction"] size -->|No| path{"Which<br/>path?"} path -->|State| sq["State-qualified issuer,<br/>licensed and supervised<br/>by the state"] sq --> cert{"State regime<br/>certified as<br/>substantially<br/>similar?"} scrc["Stablecoin<br/>Certification<br/>Review Committee"] -.-> cert cert -->|Yes| ok["State supervision<br/>continues"] cert -->|No| fed["Federal path"] path -->|Federal| fed foreign["Foreign issuer"] --> fx["Permitted only from a regime<br/>Treasury finds comparable;<br/>registers with the OCC"] fed --> fq["Federal qualified issuer:<br/>OCC, Federal Reserve,<br/>FDIC, or NCUA"] ``` *Figure 4. GENIUS Act pathways as described to the Commission (Circle, August 19; CSBS, March 10). Foreign-issuer path per [Outside the record: GENIUS Act, section 18]. Committee role per [Outside the record: Treasury interim final rule, September 30, 2026].* **If New Hampshire builds nothing.** A New Hampshire company could still issue under the federal path, and the state keeps additive consumer protection authority (Circle, August 19). Banks can issue tokenized deposits under existing law; Shawn Main of Vantage Bank reported the FDIC's position that "a deposit is a deposit" (May 13). What would be lost is a state-chartered home for smaller issuers. > [!warning] What could go wrong > GENIUS requires issuers to have the technical ability to block, freeze, or seize tokens on lawful federal order (Circle, August 19). [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 4(a)(5) and 4(a)(6).] Parker Feld asked how that differs from a central bank digital currency (May 4). In New Hampshire the question has constitutional weight under Article 2-b (§7.2). Wyoming allows freezes only under a valid court order (Apollo, October 15, 2025); New Hampshire needs its own clear rules (Recommendations 3 and 9). ### 4.2 Yield: the variable that drives everything else GENIUS bars issuers from paying yield or interest to holders (Circle, August 19) [Outside the record: GENIUS Act section 4(a)(11) applies to issuers; it does not name affiliates or exchanges], and the OCC proposed a rebuttable presumption that an issuer is paying yield if an affiliate or related party pays holders (CSBS, March 10). Exchanges may still pay rewards (Chair, May 4). Banks see stablecoin yield as a potential existential threat to deposits; issuers see it as the key to adoption (Yevgeny Shrago, CSBS, March 10). Yield also decides where reserve earnings go (Parker Feld and Chair, May 4); Wyoming routes reserve income to the state (October 15, 2025). ### 4.3 Tax friction: the real estate transfer tax The transfer tax treats a transfer of an interest in a real estate holding company like a transfer of the real estate, so every trade of a token issued by Porcupine Properties, a New Hampshire LLC (§8.3), would technically be taxable, and the token's compliance check cannot collect a tax. Matt Whitlock of Porcupine proposed taxing only a change in control, based on holders of more than 25% (February 10). [Outside the record: RSA 78-B:1-a, V taxes transfers of interests in real estate holding companies to the extent of the real estate's fair market value; RSA 78-B:1 sets a minimum tax of $20 where the price is $4,000 or less, and both buyer and seller pay.] A token trade of a few dollars can therefore carry the minimum tax. ### 4.4 Financial stability and New Hampshire banks The most-voiced worry is that dollars leaving local banks for stablecoins would reduce local lending; New Hampshire banks reinvest deposits locally at the nation's highest levels (Kisch, citing an NH Bankers Association study, December 10, 2025). The estimates below rest on different premises and are not measurements. | Figure | Source and date | Premise | Note | |---|---|---|---| | About $1 billion | Deputy Commissioner Moranti, January 14 | Crypto leaving New Hampshire in a single quarter | A past data point, not a forecast; not limited to stablecoins | | Up to about $1.9 billion | NHBA, citing a national association estimate, in the Chair's review, May 4 | Potential outflow from NH banks under the more permissive yield outcome | From the banking industry, which has a stake in the yield outcome | | About $5 billion | Main, Vantage Bank, May 13 | A scenario of 10% erosion of NH commercial deposits; mapped to $160M to $430M less lending and 1,700 to 2,800 jobs at risk | Vantage sells a tokenized-deposit product (Hazel) | *Table 4.1. Deposit-flight estimates in the record, with premises.* Main reported that about 88% of stablecoins leaving the banking system never return (May 13). The Banking Department called the effect of outflows on its self-funded examination model "real and unresolved" (May 13), and a state issuer regime would add supervisory work. ### 4.5 Network effects A payment token is worth more the more people accept it, and liquidity gathers where it already is. The Chair asked whether the GENIUS Act's $10 billion threshold might "silo liquidity into small state-chartered networks." BitGo's Hahr described two paths: consolidation around a few winners with consortium-like governance, or many issuers linked through clearing mechanisms. He suggested supporting community banks in receiving, remitting, and potentially issuing stablecoins "as a way to expand network effects from within the existing banking system" (March 10). Networks are being built for scale. The BankChain Alliance draws on 40 state bankers associations (Merrill, September 17); Roughrider Coin links about 92 North Dakota institutions (Healey, September 17); Wyoming's FRNT is live across six chains (LayerZero, April 6). Three conclusions follow. First, a token issued by one small state starts with no network, one reason this report defers a state-issued token to study (Recommendation 13) and why Lynq's Jerald David advised states not to "go it alone" (May 13). Second, New Hampshire can borrow network effects by connecting: its banks can join shared networks (Recommendation 4), and its framework can interoperate with other states (Recommendation 11). Third, if states form a consortium, for example through interstate compacts, the combined network could create significant network effects. Wyoming has said it plans interstate compacts (October 15, 2025). New Hampshire should monitor such developments and may want to be an early participant, after study and due diligence (Recommendation 11). ## 5. Best practices and regulatory efforts elsewhere *Answers RSA 383:26, I(c): best practices and ongoing regulatory efforts from other jurisdictions, including federal jurisdictions.* This section compares the models the Commission heard: state regimes, a state issuer, and three bank-led networks. Choosing among them is for §12. ### 5.1 How states are approaching it On March 10, Yevgeny Shrago of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) described four state models: a general **virtual currency license** (New York, Illinois, California, Louisiana); **special purpose depository institutions**, uninsured and limited to non-lending digital asset activity (Wyoming, Nebraska); a **state-level GENIUS Act** that writes the federal provisions into state law (Florida, Georgia); and **regulator delegation**, in which the legislature creates a license and a category of stablecoin issuer and the regulator writes GENIUS-compliant rules (Maryland, Alabama). Shrago said Treasury had been encouraging delegation. A fifth path is **the state as issuer**. Wyoming's Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), the only example in the record, is issued by a Governor-chaired state commission, backed 102% by cash, short Treasuries, and repurchase agreements, and sold through licensed service providers that verify customers' identities; reserve interest goes to the state for schools (Anthony Apollo, October 15, 2025; Chair, May 4). Wyoming argues a state-issued token falls outside the GENIUS Act (Digital Chamber, November 12, 2025). Its operations are in §8.2. ```mermaid flowchart LR B["Virtual currency license<br/>NY, IL, CA, LA"] --> G["Licenses or charters<br/>private firms"] C["Special purpose depository<br/>WY, NE"] --> G D["State-level GENIUS Act<br/>FL, GA"] --> G E["Regulator delegation<br/>MD, AL"] --> G F["State as issuer<br/>WY Frontier Stable Token"] --> H["State issues token;<br/>licensed providers<br/>distribute"] ``` *Figure 5. State approaches in the record: the four CSBS models (March 10) plus Wyoming's state-issuer path (October 15, 2025).* [Outside the record: Florida Statutes 658.997 and 17.72] Florida's stablecoin issuer approval for trust companies took effect October 1, 2026. [Outside the record: Georgia HB 1272 (2026); Alston & Bird, May 2026; Chambers 2026] Georgia enacted a Payment Stablecoin Act in 2026; Alabama and Maryland have enacted laws, Delaware has proposed one, and Texas's 2023 money services law treats certain reserve-backed stablecoins as money [Outside the record: Texas Finance Code chapter 152]. In New Hampshire, LSR 2027-0200 and LSR 2027-0239 have been filed for 2027 (§3.4). ### 5.2 Three bank-led designs Three presenters showed ways for banks to carry dollars on a blockchain, each handling the moment value leaves the network differently. **Hazel (Vantage Bank and Custodia Bank, May 13).** Each bank holds the token as a deposit. When it leaves the network, its backing moves to Custodia and the same token works as a stablecoin, preserving what Shawn Main of Vantage called the "singleness of money." Hazel is in pilot; Vantage sells it. ```mermaid flowchart TD H1["Token held at bank A"] --> H2["Token moves to bank B;<br/>the cash moves with it"] H2 --> H3["Token leaves the network:<br/>backing moves to Custodia;<br/>same token is now a stablecoin"] ``` *Figure 6a. Hazel: the same token works inside and outside the bank network (Main, May 13).* **Roughrider Coin (Fiserv and the Bank of North Dakota, September 17).** A dollar-backed token on a public blockchain that only state-approved North Dakota banks and credit unions may hold. The Bank of North Dakota, lead bank for about 92 institutions, admits members; reserves are 100% overnight bank deposits. When value leaves, Fiserv's system burns the tokenized deposit and issues a stablecoin in real time (Joe Healey). Fiserv sells the platform. ```mermaid flowchart TD R1["Tokenized deposit at an<br/>approved North Dakota bank"] --> R2["Transfers among approved<br/>banks and credit unions"] R2 --> R3["Value leaves the network:<br/>deposit token burned,<br/>stablecoin issued"] ``` *Figure 6b. Roughrider Coin: a closed network of approved North Dakota institutions led by the Bank of North Dakota (Healey, September 17).* **BankChain Alliance (New Hampshire Bankers Association, September 17).** A bank-owned payments network whose members include 40 state bankers associations, New Hampshire's among them, though their 3,400 member banks are not the number signed up (Kristy Merrill). A technology-partner request for proposals was still open. Commission member Jim Kisch of Passumpsic Bank described a deposit token reserved one for one at the sender's bank that moves at once, with banks settling dollars by end of day. ```mermaid flowchart TD B1["Deposit token, 1:1<br/>at the sender's bank"] --> B2["Ownership moves<br/>at once"] B2 --> B3["Banks settle dollars<br/>by end of day;<br/>exit design not yet chosen"] ``` *Figure 6c. BankChain Alliance: a bank-owned payments network still selecting its technology (Merrill and Kisch, September 17).* ### 5.3 The models compared | | Wyoming FRNT | State-qualified issuer (FL, GA style) | Hazel | Roughrider / Fiserv | BankChain | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | **Reserves** | Cash, short Treasuries, repos; 102% required | 1:1 cash and liquid assets (Circle) | Bank deposit; Custodia holds 1:1 outside network | 100% overnight bank deposits | 1:1 at member bank (Kisch) | | **Redemption** | "Dollar in, dollar out" via providers | At par (§4.1) | Deposit inside; stablecoin outside | At par | Not yet designed | | **Supervision** | Governor-chaired commission | State regulator, certified; federal above $10B | Bank regulators; "a deposit is a deposit" | Bank regulators; lead bank admits members | Bank regulators; 15-member industry board | | **Consumer protection** | Freeze or seize only by court order | Additive state protections (Circle) | Compliance coded in | Freeze, seize, recall like ACH returns | Not yet designed | | **Cost to the state** | $5.8M FY2025 budget, under $2M spent | Banking Department licensing and exams | None identified | ND uses its state bank; Healey: not required | None identified | | **Privacy** | Seeking a "Goldilocks zone" | Must be able to freeze on lawful federal order | Main urged protocol-level standards | Banks keep customer data | Stated RFP principle | *Figures are the presenters' own (Wyoming, October 15, 2025; Circle, August 19; Hazel, May 13; Fiserv and BankChain, September 17).* A state-issued token would put the state in the chain of custody of payment data (§7.2). Shared networks can spread a single failure, a risk Main said "is real and must be monitored" (May 13). The conflict between a state issuer and bank-led designs is in §11.2. ### 5.4 Abroad International lessons came mostly on October 15, 2025. The Global Blockchain Business Council called the EU's MiCA the most comprehensive crypto framework; Plume Network cited Bermuda's bankruptcy-remote segregated account companies and Hong Kong's grant covering half the cost of issuing tokenized bonds. Leading jurisdictions fold tokens into existing financial law. ## 6. Benefits and risks for New Hampshire *Answers RSA 383:26, I(d): potential benefits and risks of stable token, RWA, tokenization, and blockchain-based trust frameworks in New Hampshire.* Most benefits below came from presenters with a commercial interest, and several risks are estimates. Mitigations are in §7; the case for and against acting is in §11. | Use | Benefit claimed | Risk raised | |---|---|---| | **Government payments** | Tax refunds that arrive almost at once (David, Lynq, May 13); real-time audit of benefit programs (Uchill, Ceres, January 14); Wyoming's reserve interest funds schools (October 15, 2025). | Conditional, expiring, or geofenced money and "positive list" spending (Parker Feld, May 4), including geofencing of a state grant token (Gaal, April 6); revenue falls when interest rates fall (Wyoming, October 15, 2025). The record has no figures on Wyoming's adoption or revenue (§8.2). | | **Community-bank deposits** | Stablecoin speed with deposits kept in local lending (Main, May 13; Healey, Merrill, and Kisch, September 17). | Deposit flight, up to about $5 billion in one vendor scenario (Table 4.1, §4.4); the effect on the Banking Department's self-funded model is "real and unresolved" (May 13). | | **Tokenized real-world assets** (§8.3) | Fractional ownership, and municipal bonds in $20 units instead of $1,000 (Whitlock, Porcupine, February 10); settlement and collateral that move 24/7 (Lynq, May 13; Canton, February 10). | Not every asset reduces to digital fields (Parker Feld, May 4); rent-to-own consumer protection (Garod, February 10); bankruptcy, eviction, and a possible de facto mortgage (Moranti, February 10); the real estate transfer tax (§4.3). | | **Blockchain-based trusts** (§9) | Code no trustee can override could ease the impossibility defense and draw trust business (Huyett, November 12, 2025). | Admin keys, oracles, and upgrade paths can give a person control; the draft has no savings clause for creditors. The record has no opposing trust-law analysis. | ## 7. Consumer protection, privacy, environmental protection, and risk management *This section answers RSA 383:26, I(e): "Mechanisms for consumer protection, privacy concerns, environmental protection, and risk management."* Privacy gets the largest treatment, because it is where the state Constitution speaks most directly. ### 7.1 Consumer protection **The redemption gap.** Direct redemption at par is typically open only to institutions; ordinary holders sell on the secondary market at whatever price it sets (§3.1, Figure 3). "This backstop is not available to retail consumers," BitGo's Eugene Hahr said; if market makers step back under stress, the result can be "cascading spread widening," as in the Terra/Luna collapse (BitGo, March 10). **What federal law leaves to states.** CSBS said the GENIUS Act "explicitly applies state and federal consumer protection laws to all issuers," while flagging the OCC's continued interest in preempting state consumer protection law for its own charters (CSBS, March 10). Circle said states may enforce additive protections covering fraud, disclosures, and redemption practices (Circle, August 19). **Labeling.** Hahr said fiat-backed, asset-backed, algorithmic, and hybrid tokens are all sold as stablecoins (§3.1), and that "USD" in a name says nothing reliable about backing. He suggested point-of-sale classification and standardized disclosures on reserve composition, audit frequency, the absence of FDIC insurance, and secondary-market risk (BitGo, March 10). Prof. Oranburg suggested the Commission consider labeling or classification requirements (March 10). **Freeze, seize, and recall.** Many tokens let an issuer stop or reverse transactions. Hedera described controls so a "fat-fingered" transfer need not be a permanent loss (December 10, 2025); Fiserv described recall functions "analogous to ACH return codes" (September 17). Commission member Andy Schwab ran the USDC contract's `isBlacklisted` function on his own wallet and showed the issuer's blacklister address and its recent actions; technically, he said, a freeze is "no more complex than a function call" (September 17). The Chair noted an FBI-coordinated freeze of approximately $344 million of Tether on Tron (May 4). These controls are choices by particular issuers, not properties of blockchains. They protect against error and theft, but someone holds a key that can stop a person's money (§7.2; §9). **Agentic payments.** Confirmed blockchain payments cannot be disputed and clawed back like card and ACH payments (BitGo, March 10). On September 17, Schwab's AI agent paid 0.001 USDC for a web page within seconds; the demonstration produced roughly two dozen on-chain transactions, each, he observed, a taxable event and a potential OFAC or FinCEN compliance exposure. Rowland Graus of Chainlink Labs, which offers agent payment products, warned that spending limits and allow-lists are "necessary but not sufficient" and that tax reporting could grow from thousands of transactions per user to hundreds of thousands (September 17). Who is liable when an agent does something the user never ruled out is unsettled (Hahr, March 10). ### 7.2 Privacy **Where New Hampshire starts.** Part I, Article 2-b of the New Hampshire Constitution provides: "An individual's right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent." [Outside the record: N.H. Const. Pt. I, Art. 2-b, adopted 2018 (CACR 16); New Hampshire Law Library.] [Outside the record: RSA 359-C:3, 359-C:4, and 359-C:8 to 359-C:11.] The Right to Privacy Act lets state officials obtain a customer's records from a bank, trust company, or credit union only with the customer's authorization, an administrative or judicial subpoena with notice and a chance to challenge, or a search warrant, subject to exceptions for supervisory agencies and certain health and human services matters. It does not reach stablecoin issuers, exchanges, or money transmitters. [Outside the record: State v. Zarella, 2025 N.H. 20.] The New Hampshire Supreme Court has also given Article 2-b real weight in deciding when records held by private organizations may be reached. **Pseudonymous, not anonymous.** Blockchains are "pseudonymous (not anonymous)," which makes tracing possible (Anchorage Digital, January 14). No names are stored on-chain, but every transaction is permanently recorded, and analytics firms combine the ledger with sanctions, law enforcement, and dark web data to cluster addresses by owner (Elliptic, August 19; reconstructed minutes, see Elliptic deck). Schwab showed about $4.2 billion of USDC on one network, across about 11 million wallets, "all publicly visible" (September 17). For an ordinary person, public chains show too much, permanently. ```mermaid flowchart TD A["Fully transparent public chain<br/>every amount and address visible<br/>(Schwab demo, Sept 17)"] --> B["Pseudonymous chain plus analytics<br/>addresses clustered to owners<br/>(Anchorage, Jan 14; Elliptic, Aug 19)"] B --> C["Permissioned or institution-private ledgers<br/>each party sees its own data<br/>(Canton, Feb 10; Lynq, May 13)"] C --> D["Selective disclosure<br/>verifiable credentials, blinding keys<br/>(Hedera, Dec 10; Liquid, Feb 10)"] D --> E["Zero-knowledge proofs<br/>prove a fact, reveal nothing else<br/>(Feb 10 discussion; Schwab, Sept 17)"] ``` *Figure 7. The privacy spectrum, from most visible (top) to most private (bottom), with examples from the Commission's record.* **Designs the Commission heard** (Figure 7): verifiable credentials that prove one fact, such as age 21 or over, without revealing identity (Hedera, December 10, 2025); institution-level privacy (Canton, February 10); confidential transactions with blinding keys (Liquid Network, Porcupine, February 10); a private settlement chain whose broker-dealer keeps records seven years (Lynq, May 13); Chainlink's Confidential Compute (April 6); and zero-knowledge proofs, which prove a statement without revealing the data (February 10 discussion; Schwab, September 17). Kisch noted that zero-knowledge proofs are hard to square with know-your-customer and sanctions checks, which "need more than a simple yes/no verification"; the Chair observed that today's compliance systems create "honeypots" of personal information that zero-knowledge proofs could address (February 10). **Who can see a payment.** In Figure 8, government can obtain identified records from the issuer or a bank through legal process and can direct a freeze. Article 2-b is aimed at those arrows. ```mermaid flowchart TD P["Payer's wallet"] -->|"stablecoin transfer"| R["Recipient's wallet"] P -.->|"KYC records at onboarding"| I["Issuer or bank"] P -->|"addresses, amount, time"| L["Public ledger: anyone can read"] L --> AF["Analytics firms: cluster addresses to owners"] AF -->|"risk flags"| I G["Government"] -->|"legal process"| I G -->|"freeze or blacklist direction"| I I -->|"identified records"| G G -.-> Q{"NH Const. Pt. I, Art. 2-b:<br/>freedom from governmental intrusion<br/>in private information"} ``` *Figure 8. Who can see what in a stablecoin payment. Article 2-b's question is when the government arrows should be allowed, and on what showing.* **Wyoming and the skeptic.** Wyoming described a ban on forced private-key disclosure and freeze and seize "only via valid court order" (Apollo, October 15, 2025), untested by the Commission. Dr. Karen Parker Feld asked who can obtain a citizen's purchase records, how the GENIUS freeze requirement for "other lawful orders" differs from a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and for a citizen opt-out (May 4; §11.3). The Chair endorsed "privacy in the private sphere, transparency in the government sphere" (May 4). **The federal backdrop on CBDCs.** [Outside the record: a January 23, 2025 federal executive order prohibits federal agencies from promoting a CBDC, and Title XI of P.L. 119-101 temporarily prohibits a Federal Reserve CBDC through 2030 (Congressional Research Service, IF11471).] Parker Feld's point stands regardless: a private stablecoin with mandatory freeze capability can raise some of the same concerns as a CBDC, depending on who can direct the freeze and on what showing. Privacy is a set of design choices: what goes on a public ledger, who holds the keys, what an issuer must collect, and what showing the government must make before it looks or freezes. Recommendation 9 sets the operative rules. ### 7.3 Environmental protection The stablecoins and tokenized assets before the Commission run on smart-contract networks, and smart-contract networks tend to use consensus mechanisms other than proof of work. The Chair noted that the networks used for stablecoins and real-world asset tokenization use proof of stake (January 14); Wyoming's FRNT is live across six chains, including Solana (LayerZero, April 6). [Outside the record: Ethereum has used proof of stake since September 2022; Solana also uses proof of stake; Hedera uses hashgraph consensus secured by proof of stake; Base, Optimism, and Arbitrum settle to Ethereum; the Liquid Network used by Porcupine Properties is a federated sidechain (network documentation).] The frameworks recommended in this report regulate issuers, reserves, and records, not consensus methods, and New Hampshire law already protects node operation, mining, and staking (RSA 359-V:3). The Commission therefore identifies no additional environmental protection mechanism they require. The record also shows the technology serving environmental work: Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality uses a Hedera-based tool to track Chesapeake Bay watershed impact (Hedera, December 10, 2025). ### 7.4 Risk management Risks in the record fall into five families (Figure 9). ```mermaid flowchart LR A["Run risk<br/>loss of confidence, de-peg"] --> A1["Reserves, redemption rules, disclosure"] B["Operational and key risk<br/>compromised keys, contract flaws"] --> B1["Audits, multi-party keys, mint caps"] C["Illicit finance<br/>sanctions, theft, scams"] --> C1["Analytics, blacklisting, transaction monitoring"] D["Leverage and contagion<br/>DeFi rehypothecation"] --> D1["Collateral limits, liquidation rules"] E["Consumer error<br/>wrong address, agent mistakes"] --> E1["Recall functions, guardrails, labeling"] ``` *Figure 9. A risk map: five families of risk in the record and the mitigations presenters described for each.* **Run risk.** CSBS warned that pushing deposits into an uninsured system without bank-equivalent capital "recreates shadow banking run risks" (March 10). The OCC's proposed reserve and liquidation rules aim to prevent runs (Appendix L). **Leverage and contagion.** Schwab said nearly all surviving DeFi lending is fully collateralized with automatic liquidation, but a user could "loop" deposits, and excessive rehypothecation "is what blew up in the original DeFi boom." Woody Canaday, who had asked whether borrowing against already-lent USDC builds leverage, was concerned about many participants levered at once (September 17). **Illicit finance.** Elliptic described state-sponsored theft, sanctions evasion through mixers, elder fraud, and ransomware, and said regulators increasingly expect blockchain transaction monitoring (Elliptic, August 19; reconstructed minutes, see Elliptic deck). **Keys and custody.** Whoever controls the keys controls the token. [Outside the record: on March 22, 2026, the Resolv Labs USR stablecoin lost more than 70% of its value after a compromised private key was used to mint 80 million unbacked tokens; Chainalysis attributed it to a privileged off-chain signer with no mint cap (Decrypt; FinanceFeeds).] Safeguards in the record include Chainlink's "Secure Mint" (April 6), 6-of-7 multi-approval signing and three custody models, from qualified third-party custody to multi-signature self-custody (Fortris, December 10, 2025), Wyoming's state-owned keys and contracts (April 6), and Fiserv's fail-safe issuance (September 17). The controls that protect consumers are also single points of failure, so a framework should settle in advance, in writing, who holds each key and what must happen before it is used. ## 8. Economic opportunity: innovation and jobs *Answers RSA 383:26, I(f): economic opportunities related to blockchain technology and digital assets, including fostering innovation and job creation.* This section separates what exists from what presenters projected; the Commission received no independent economic study. ### 8.1 What New Hampshire already has Building on the 2022 Commission's work (§2.6), the state has the DAO law, RSA 301-B; the Blockchain Basic Laws, RSA 359-V; and a blockchain dispute docket, RSA 491:7-c. [Outside the record: HB 645 (2024), Ch. 263; HB 1073 (2026), Ch. 131; HB 639 (2026), Ch. 286] UNH is building the DAO registry (Chair, September 17), which will accept stablecoin payments for fees (§3.4). It has people: all three LayerZero co-founders are UNH alumni (April 6). It has a trust industry that draws firms from out of state: Fiserv's StoneCastle Trust Company, which holds cash only, chose New Hampshire after evaluating four states, in part because regulators understood its business model (Healey, September 17). **Law already on the books.** [Outside the record: RSA 399-G:3, VII (2024, 368:1).] The money transmitter law exempts persons who sell or issue payment instruments or stored value solely in convertible virtual currency, or who receive it for transmission, subject to the Consumer Protection Act. [Outside the record: Laws 2022, ch. 281; Laws 2023, ch. 236.] The state adopted UCC Article 12 on controllable electronic records, conformed to the final uniform text, and its UCC defines money to exclude government currency in electronic form, so a central bank digital currency is not "money" under New Hampshire's commercial code. RSA 359-C limits state access to financial records (§7.2). [Outside the record: Department of Revenue Administration.] The state has no general sales tax, and its interest and dividends tax is repealed for taxable periods beginning after December 31, 2024. ### 8.2 Wyoming: what a state issuer looks like in practice LayerZero called Wyoming's token "live in production (not a pilot)" (April 6). Reserve interest goes to the state (§5.1). **The record contains no adoption figures and no revenue actually paid to the state.** [Outside the record: Franklin Templeton; Wyoming factbook; PR Newswire] FRNT launched publicly on January 7, 2026, and Wyoming later moved its cross-chain and proof-of-reserve functions to Chainlink, retiring LayerZero. ### 8.3 Tokenized real-world assets: where New Hampshire can lead Tokenization records ownership of an existing asset, such as a Treasury bill, fund share, bond, or real estate, as a token on a blockchain. The Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) put tokenized RWAs above $10 billion to $15 billion on chain in 2025, led by U.S. Treasuries, citing projections of $1 trillion to $3 trillion by 2030 (Zales, October 15, 2025). The Chair's later figure is in §3.2. | Asset | Examples in the record | Source | |---|---|---| | Treasuries and money market fund shares | BlackRock BUIDL and Franklin Templeton BENJI; Ceres Coin, tokenized government money market fund shares proposed for state benefit programs | Chair, May 4; Chainlink, April 6; Ceres, January 14 | | Collateral and settlement | DTCC tokenizing Treasuries on the Canton Network under an SEC no-action letter; Lynq using a tokenized Treasury fund as settlement collateral for about 50 institutions | Canton, February 10; Lynq, May 13 | | Private markets and yield products | Plume's network of tokenized assets and vaults, open to U.S. users | Plume, October 15, 2025 | | Bonds | Hong Kong's grant covering half the cost of issuing tokenized bonds; municipal bonds sold in $20 units instead of $1,000 | Plume, October 15, 2025; Whitlock, February 10 | | Real estate | Porcupine Properties, a New Hampshire LLC, plans to tokenize the equity in a real estate holding company, not the property itself | Whitlock, February 10 | *Table 8.1. Tokenized real-world assets in the Commission's record.* Most of what is tokenized is a legal claim, such as a fund share or LLC interest, and the law governing the claim still applies: "existing legal requirements don't disappear" (Zales, October 15, 2025). New Hampshire community banks could trade tokenized deposits with one another on the Canton Network (Lascar, February 10), and Banking Commissioner Galdieri called Ceres Coin "the stablecoin version of the PDIP," the state's Public Deposit Investment Pool (January 14). Matt Whitlock of Porcupine Properties showed how tokenization could open New Hampshire real estate to small investors: the property sits in an ordinary LLC whose shares are issued as "Pine" tokens, with compliance enforced before transfers reach the chain (February 10). He also modeled a rent-to-own path that, on a $300,000 home, matched a 30-year mortgage at an effective rate of about 10.81% (his estimate). The model was theoretical, and it drew consumer-protection concerns from Assistant Attorney General Garod and Deputy Commissioner Moranti (see "What stands in the way," below). The real estate transfer tax treats every token trade as taxable (§4.3), as Figure 10 shows. ```mermaid flowchart TD P["NH property"] --> L["Held by an LLC"] L --> T["LLC equity to be<br/>issued as tokens"] T --> W1["Investor wallet"] T --> W2["Investor wallet"] W1 -- "token transfer" --> W2 W1 -. "each transfer is a transfer<br/>of an interest in a real estate<br/>holding company" .-> X["Real estate transfer tax<br/>applies; token check can<br/>only allow or deny"] ``` *Figure 10. The tokenized real estate structure presented by Porcupine Properties, and where the transfer tax problem arises (February 10).* **What New Hampshire already has.** UCC Article 12 (§8.1) sets rules for who controls a digital asset and how it is transferred and pledged. [Outside the record: Laws 2022, ch. 281 (HB 1503)] The same act exempted certain consumptive "open blockchain tokens" from parts of state securities law, and RSA 421-B governs a security whatever form its records take. **What presenters proposed.** Plume Network recommended encouraging tokenized municipal bonds, as Hong Kong does; a Bermuda-style framework of bankruptcy-remote entities holding the asset behind each token; recognizing ledger-based shares, as Switzerland does; and accepting verified credentials in place of repeated identity checks (October 15, 2025). Prof. Oranburg cited certificateless tokenized shares as attractive to issuers (October 15, 2025). **What stands in the way.** The real estate transfer tax (§4.3); consumer protection in retail real estate offerings (Garod and Moranti, February 10); and the gap between a token and its asset, since not every feature reduces to digital fields (Parker Feld, May 4). Recommendation 8 addresses the first two; Recommendation 13 studies the third. ### 8.4 Community banks and programmable money For New Hampshire banks, the opportunity is faster, programmable payments without losing the deposits that fund local loans. Commission member Jim Kisch described a smart-contract escrow released automatically once a lien waiver is acknowledged (September 17). > [!tip] Myth vs. fact > **Myth:** A state needs its own state bank to run a bank token network. > **Fact:** Healey said the Bank of North Dakota leads Roughrider, but "a state does not need its own state bank to run this model" (September 17). The only job estimate in the record came from a party with a stake and counts jobs at risk, not new ones: 1,700 to 2,800 under Vantage's deposit-erosion scenario (Main, May 13; Table 4.1, §4.4). ### 8.5 The BFA Bitcoin-backed bond On May 13 the Chair reported that the Business Finance Authority was preparing what would be the first state-level conduit bond collateralized by Bitcoin, about $100 million, with collateral from the miner CleanSpark. [Outside the record: Boston Globe; Bloomberg] The Executive Council rejected it 3 to 2 on July 8, 2026. It is not pending. ### 8.6 Agentic commerce Schwab demonstrated a software agent paying a fraction of a cent for a web page (§7.1); Chainlink's Rowland Graus said verifiable on-chain agent activity "remains small" (September 17). The tax burden Schwab described is federal: such a payment in New Hampshire triggers no state sales or personal income tax (§8.1), a point worth making to firms building agent payments. BitGo suggested treating stablecoin transactions as cash equivalents for state tax purposes (March 10); Recommendation 13 studies the business profits and business enterprise taxes. ## 9. Blockchain-based trusts *This section answers RSA 383:26, I(a) to (d) as they apply to blockchain-based trusts.* ### 9.1 Why trusts are in the mandate RSA 383:26 names blockchain-based trusts alongside stable tokens and RWAs, though the topic is trust and creditor law. Ian Huyett, who presented it (§9.2), noted that no other state's commission had taken it up (November 12, 2025). ### 9.2 Proposals made to the Commission Attorney Ian Huyett, a New Hampshire Blockchain Council board member, presented an article co-authored with Brian Quirk (November 12, 2025). Self-settled asset protection trusts, recognized under RSA 564-B, rest largely on the "defense of impossibility": a court cannot hold a person in contempt for failing to do the impossible. Huyett's thesis is that a decentralized smart contract has no trustee and so no human "back door." He cited the Cook Islands, where he said asset protection trust business is roughly one-third of GDP, as the value of being an early jurisdiction. ```mermaid --- config: flowchart: nodeSpacing: 30 rankSpacing: 40 --- flowchart TD S["Settlor places assets<br/>in an irrevocable trust"] --> SC["Decentralized smart contract holds and distributes the assets by fixed rules"] SC -->|"scheduled<br/>distributions"| W["Beneficiary's<br/>distribution wallet"] C["Creditor obtains<br/>court order to modify"] -.->|"no trustee<br/>can comply"| SC C ~~~ K C -.-> D{"Defense of<br/>impossibility:<br/>can anyone<br/>actually change<br/>the contract?"} K["Admin keys, oracles,<br/>upgrade paths,<br/>governance votes"] -.->|"if present,<br/>someone can"| D ``` *Figure 11. How a blockchain-based asset protection trust is meant to work, and the question a court would ask (Huyett, November 12, 2025). The lower path shows the weakness discussed in Appendix I.* He proposed jurisdiction over such trusts, spendthrift protection for qualifying smart contracts, a presumed impossibility defense, a statutory definition of a decentralized smart contract, and a blockchain docket (since enacted, §2.6). The draft language needs work (Appendix I). [Outside the record: 11 U.S.C. 548(e); FTC v. Affordable Media, 179 F.3d 1228 (9th Cir. 1999).] Federal law also limits it: a bankruptcy court can reach transfers to a self-settled trust made to hinder creditors within ten years before filing, and a federal court has rejected a self-created impossibility defense. ### 9.3 Commission position > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > The Commission endorses the concept of blockchain-based asset protection trusts as a promising extension of New Hampshire's trust leadership, and recommends that the draft be redrafted, placed in RSA 564-B, and reviewed by the Attorney General and the trust bar, for introduction no later than the 2028 session, resolving the points in Appendix I (Recommendation 12). > *Possible alternatives:* endorse the draft for introduction as written; refer for further study without endorsement. ## 10. Findings *This section states the Commission's findings under RSA 383:26, IV. Each is drawn from the sections cited.* **Finding 1. Federal law now sets the terms for state action.** The GENIUS Act, signed July 18, 2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins with a pathway for states (Chair, May 4). A state may supervise issuers under $10 billion only if certified "substantially similar," with initial submissions due January 18, 2028 (CSBS, March 10). (§3.3, §4.1) **Finding 2. The market is large and inconsistently measured.** The Chair reported stablecoins growing from about $240 billion to about $322 billion, and tokenized real-world assets from about $8 billion to about $31 billion, each over about a year (May 4); figures vary by source and date. (§3.2) **Finding 3. Tokens that look alike are legally different.** Payment stablecoins, tokenized deposits, tokenized fund shares, and wrapped tokens differ in issuer, backing, regulator, and rights; "USD" in a name says nothing reliable about backing (BitGo, March 10). (§3.1, §7.1) **Finding 4. States are moving, along several models.** CSBS identified four state models (March 10); Wyoming issues its own token (October 15, 2025), and North Dakota runs a bank-led closed network (Fiserv, September 17). [Outside the record: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Maryland have since enacted stablecoin laws.] (§5.1) **Finding 5. Bank-led designs can keep deposits local.** Hazel (May 13), Roughrider Coin, and the BankChain Alliance (September 17) each handle value leaving the bank network differently; the FDIC position, as reported, is that a tokenized deposit is a deposit (Main, May 13). (§5.2) **Finding 6. Deposit flight is the most-cited risk, and its size is uncertain.** Interested parties estimated up to about $1.9 billion (NH Bankers Association, cited by the Chair, May 4) and about $5 billion under a 10% erosion scenario (Vantage Bank, May 13); the Banking Department called the effect on its funding "real and unresolved" (May 13). (§4.4) **Finding 7. A state token and community banks pull in opposite directions.** A state token earns revenue by drawing dollars into reserves, while bank-led designs aim to slow deposit migration (Mike Dennehy, May 13; §11.2); converting to a stablecoin only when value leaves the network offers a bridge (Fiserv, September 17). (§11.2) **Finding 8. Retail holders depend on markets, not redemption.** Redemption at par is typically an institutional right; retail holders sell on secondary markets that depend on market makers (BitGo, March 10). (§3.1, §7.1) **Finding 9. Privacy is a design choice, and New Hampshire's Constitution speaks to it.** Every public blockchain transaction is permanently traceable (Anchorage, January 14; Elliptic, August 19), and federal law requires issuers to be able to freeze or seize tokens (Circle, August 19). [Outside the record: N.H. Const. Pt. I, Art. 2-b.] Article 2-b protects the right "to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information." (§7.2) **Finding 10. Whoever holds the keys controls the token.** Freeze, recall, and administrative functions protect consumers but are single points of failure (§3.1, §7.4). [Outside the record: the March 2026 Resolv USR failure, caused by a compromised minting key, illustrates the risk.] **Finding 11. Tokenized real-world assets fit existing law, and New Hampshire can be a home for them.** The examples tokenize legal claims that existing law governs; the one statutory barrier found is the real estate transfer tax on each token transfer (Whitlock, February 10). Other jurisdictions have acted to attract issuers (Plume, October 15, 2025), and New Hampshire has UCC Article 12. (§4.3, §8.3) **Finding 12. Blockchain-based trusts are novel and promising, and the proposal needs refinement.** The draft needs further work, and its premise depends on contracts no person can alter (§9). **Finding 13. New Hampshire has foundations to build on.** It has a DAO law, a blockchain docket, self-custody protections, a money transmitter exemption, UCC Article 12, a financial privacy statute, a trust industry, and university talent; none makes it a leader on its own (§2.6, §8.1). **Finding 14. Some questions were not answered.** The Commission received no briefing on algorithmic stablecoins (flagged January 14 and February 10), the deferred SoFi presentation (April 6, May 4), or Chainlink's follow-up on oracle liability (April 6). Liability for smart-contract and AI-written code failures is unsettled (§7.1, §11.3). **Finding 15. Network effects reward scale and connection.** A payment token is worth more the more widely it is accepted; a small state can gain scale through shared bank networks (September 17) and interoperability across issuers and states (BitGo, March 10; LayerZero, April 6). A consortium of states could create significant network effects (§4.5). ## 11. Reasons for action *Answers RSA 383:26, IV (findings and recommendations), and supplies the Commission's net assessment under I(d).* Since the 2022 Commission reported, federal law has invited states to supervise stablecoin issuers, with an initial certification deadline of January 18, 2028 (CSBS, March 10; §4.1), and other states are already acting (§5.1). As the Digital Chamber put it, "the rules of the road are now being written in the states" (November 12, 2025). ### 11.1 What is at stake - **Community banks and the Banking Department.** "We can't lend if we don't have deposits," Healey quoted Andrew Silsby of Kennebec Savings Bank as saying (September 17). Deposit loss would also shrink the assessments that fund examination, a question the Department called "real and unresolved" (May 13). The deposit-flight figures come from interested parties, but no presenter disputed the direction of the risk (§4.4). - **Prosperity and the trust industry.** Finance is moving onto digital rails, and New Hampshire's trust companies already serve national firms (Healey, September 17). - **Consumers.** Retail holders cannot redeem at par with the issuer and rely on secondary markets that can fail under stress (Hahr, BitGo, March 10). - **Privacy.** Every blockchain transaction leaves a permanent, traceable record (Elliptic, August 19, reconstructed minutes). ### 11.2 The structural conflict Mike Dennehy, a lobbyist with Dennehy-Bouley, flagged "a structural conflict" at the close of the May 13 meeting: a state-issued stable token "would on the issuer side want maximum stablecoin adoption to generate state revenue, while the bank-led tokenized-deposit thesis (Vantage / Hazel) wants the opposite" (May 13). A Wyoming-style token earns revenue only as dollars leave bank deposits for its reserves, so the state's revenue would partly be its banks' loss. The bridge is the handoff design in bank-led networks such as Roughrider and Hazel (§5.2): inside the network a token is a tokenized deposit, and when value leaves, the system "burns the tokenized deposit, and issues a stablecoin, in real time and without swaps" (Healey, September 17). That is why §12 accommodates both forms and defers a state-issued token to study rather than rejecting it. In North Dakota, the state-owned Bank of North Dakota leads about 92 banks and credit unions, and dollars stay as deposits at participating institutions (Healey, September 17). New Hampshire has no state bank, and the Chair has said one is not practical (§12.5). Here the banks lead, through the BankChain Alliance or a network they form; the State clears the way and has no role in a network's governance, membership, or choice of vendor (Recommendation 4). The honest trade-off: a licensed private issuer also draws dollars from bank deposits, and a state license may lend legitimacy, so a framework may modestly increase stablecoin use. The Commission accepts that: residents already buy stablecoins supervised elsewhere, and about $1 billion left New Hampshire for crypto assets generally in one quarter (Moranti, January 14). Supervised issuance under New Hampshire's rules is better than unsupervised use of out-of-state tokens, and Recommendation 4's deposit monitoring will test that judgment. ### 11.3 Answering the skeptical case Dr. Karen Parker Feld asked "what problem are we trying to solve?" across six areas, and Sen. Reardon urged a focus on the legitimate role of state government, where state action can reach (May 4). 1. **Blockchain: records and chains.** A state cannot govern a public network's consensus, but it can govern the issuers it licenses; Wyoming screened chains against about 30 criteria and reviews them quarterly (October 15, 2025). *Where the case is weak:* base-layer governance stays outside state reach. 2. **Smart contracts: conditions and liability.** Controls exist: audited contracts (Main, May 13), issuance blocked if any control fails (Healey, September 17), and IT and third-party risk examination (Shrago, March 10). *Where the case is unproven:* oracle liability, which Chainlink referred to its lawyers (April 6), and AI-written code; both go to study (Recommendation 13). 3. **Stablecoins: freezes, seigniorage, community banks.** The freeze capability is a federal requirement the state cannot remove, and the "lawful order" it answers is a federal order only (Circle, August 19) [Outside the record: GENIUS Act section 2(16)]. A state freeze needs state process, on the showing Recommendation 9 sets; Recommendation 3 sets issuers' rules. Issuers may not pay yield, so reserve income goes to the issuer unless the issuer is public, as in Wyoming (Recommendation 13). Recommendation 4 addresses community banks. Dollarization abroad is beyond state reach. 4. **Programmable money: conditionality, expiration, geofencing.** These capabilities exist (§6), and freeze controls belong to particular contracts, not blockchains. Recommendation 9 bars state agencies from attaching expiration dates or location limits to residents' money and guarantees a non-token way to deal with the state. 5. **Real-world assets: not every asset reduces to digital fields.** Agreed. The RWAs in the record tokenize legal claims (LLC equity, fund shares) under existing securities law (Whitlock, February 10). The Commission proposes no new RWA licensing statute (§12.6); Recommendation 8 removes the transfer tax barrier (§12.2). 6. **Tokens: custody and title.** New Hampshire already protects self-custody (RSA 359-V:2) [Outside the record: HB 639 (2026), Ch. 286], and Recommendation 2's disclosures cover custody. *Where the case is weak:* that investors hold claims rather than title is a feature of national securities markets a state cannot resolve. Her process requests (an open record, no "Wall Street timeline," a citizen opt-out; May 4) are met by an open process, phased recommendations, and Recommendation 9. ### 11.4 Net assessment New Hampshire should act, not because the benefits are proven but because federal law rewards states that build a certifiable regime. Doing nothing leaves the deposit risk in place and residents using stablecoins supervised elsewhere, which tokenized deposits alone cannot change (§12.5). The case is weakest on government use of programmable money, smart-contract liability, a state token's revenue, and whether issuers will choose a New Hampshire charter (§12.1): the Commission recommends restraint and study on the first three, and features that draw issuers on the last. ## 12. Recommendations *Answers RSA 383:26, I and IV. Every recommendation below is PROPOSED for Commission vote; those that choose among options carry a callout listing the alternatives.* The recommendations aim where the record shows New Hampshire can lead. They form three bills for the 2027 session and a plan for the work after; drafting detail is in Appendix K. | No. | Recommendation | Vehicle | Responsible actor | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Certifiable issuer framework | Bill A | General Court; Banking Department | | 2 | Protections beyond the federal floor | Bill A | General Court; Banking Department | | 3 | Clear rules for monitoring, freezing, and reversing tokens | Bill A | General Court; Banking Department | | 4 | Tokenized deposits | Bill A | General Court; Banking Department | | 5 | A safe harbor and binding answers for builders | Bill A | General Court; Banking Department; Bureau of Securities Regulation | | 6 | An independent Office of Financial Innovation | Bill A | General Court | | 7 | Supervisory structure and federal partnerships | Bill A | General Court; Banking Department; Bureau of Securities Regulation | | 8 | A home for tokenized real-world assets | Bill B | General Court; Department of Revenue Administration; Bureau of Securities Regulation | | 9 | Privacy in digital money, and limits on a retail CBDC | Bill C | General Court | | 10 | One body to carry the work forward | LSR 2027-0239 or session law | General Court | | 11 | Federal engagement and interstate cooperation | Agency action | Banking Department; Bureau of Securities Regulation | | 12 | Blockchain-based trusts: redraft for the 2028 session | Legislation, after review | Body under No. 10; Attorney General; trust bar | | 13 | Further study | Session law or the body under No. 10 | Body under No. 10; State Treasury; Office of Financial Innovation | ### 12.1 Bill A: certification and consumer trust *Committees: House Commerce and Consumer Affairs; Senate Commerce. Bill A must pass in 2027 for New Hampshire to certify on time.* **Recommendation 1. A certifiable state issuer framework, on time.** The Banking Department should license and supervise state qualified payment stablecoin issuers under a new chapter written to be certified as "substantially similar" under GENIUS section 4(c), covering licensing, reserves, redemption, disclosures, examination, fees, enforcement, receivership, and rulemaking, on the regulator delegation model (§5.1) that CSBS said Treasury encourages (March 10). Four features would make it competitive: - **On time.** Effective on passage, with interim rules adopting the federal standards by reference, so the Department can file a conditional certification as soon as Treasury accepts filings and a complete one once its rules are adopted (§4.1). The 2027 session is the only one that works. - **Nationwide reach.** Authorize the cooperative agreements that let a New Hampshire licensee operate in other states without their licenses, and keep an issuer that grows past $10 billion chartered in New Hampshire under joint supervision (§4.1). - **Trust companies eligible.** A New Hampshire trust company that is not FDIC-insured, or a limited-purpose trust company subsidiary, may apply (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **Fast, funded licensing.** A decision on a substantially complete application within 90 days, with approval deemed if none is made; published, capped fees; and a start-up appropriation for the first examiners, repaid from fees, with no bank assessment money (Department, May 13; Shrago, March 10; drafting detail in Appendix K). The framework and LSR 2027-0200 (§3.4) should be merged into one bill. *Rationale:* certification is the only lever GENIUS gives states, and with no issuer telling the Commission it would seek a New Hampshire charter and Fiserv viewing an OCC-chartered bank as currently best suited to issue (Healey, September 17), these features are what would draw issuers. > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Enact a Banking Department issuer framework designed for certification on time, open to New Hampshire trust companies, with fast, funded licensing. Do not create a state-issued token now; study it instead (Recommendation 13). > *Possible alternatives:* Wyoming-style state issuance now; virtual-currency licensing (New York model); special purpose depository institution model; relying on tokenized deposits alone (§12.5). **Recommendation 2. Protections beyond the federal floor.** New Hampshire should exceed the federal minimum in four ways: - **Redemption for every holder.** Any holder, not only large institutions, may redeem at par within a fixed period, with fees capped and minimums limited (Finding 8; BitGo, March 10). - **Reserve safety.** Limit the share of reserves held at any single bank, require public reserve reports at least monthly, and require each issuer to keep a resolution plan (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **Plain disclosure.** Label products sold to residents as "stablecoins" by type (§3.1), with point-of-sale disclosures on reserves, attestation frequency, custody of reserves and keys, the absence of FDIC insurance, and secondary-market redemption risk (Hahr and Oranburg, March 10). The Department should pursue a uniform label through CSBS. The duty falls on issuers and platforms selling to residents, not on non-custodial software (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **A privacy floor.** Issuers collect no customer data beyond what federal law requires, may not sell or make secondary use of transaction data, and must publish their data practices. [Outside the record: federal financial privacy law permits states to give consumers greater protection (15 U.S.C. 6807).] *Rationale:* states keep authority over additive consumer protection (Circle, August 19), and protections a consumer can see are a reason to choose a New Hampshire token. **Recommendation 3. Clear rules for when a token can be monitored, frozen, or reversed.** Every payment stablecoin issued by a New Hampshire licensee, and any token the State itself might issue, should operate under statutory rules that say when, by whom, and on what showing a token or wallet may be monitored beyond the public ledger and required identity checks; frozen or locked; seized or burned; or recalled or reversed. - **Legal basis.** Each action needs one: a state warrant or court order for any action taken at the State's request (Recommendation 9); a lawful federal order; the issuer's federal anti-money-laundering and sanctions duties; or a narrow, published policy for correcting errors and recovering stolen or wrongly minted tokens (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **Due process.** The holder gets notice, a prompt way to contest the action and have it lifted, and time limits on temporary holds, except where federal law forbids disclosure or governs release (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **Transparency.** Each issuer and the Banking Department report yearly, in aggregate, how many actions were taken and on what grounds, and issuers publish their terms in plain language before a person buys or receives a token. - **Safe harbor.** An issuer that follows these rules is not liable to holders under state law for the action. - **Supervision preserved.** Nothing in these rules limits the Banking Commissioner's examination, enforcement, or receivership authority. The rules apply to payment stablecoins issued by licensees, not to governance tokens, consumptive tokens, or non-custodial software. *Rationale:* the controls already exist in nearly every token in the record (Fiserv, September 17; §7.1), and rules written in law supply the trust the industry sees as the main gap to adoption (Graus, September 17), as Wyoming presents its court-order rule (Apollo, October 15, 2025). **Recommendation 4. Tokenized deposits.** The statute should define "tokenized deposit" and confirm that a New Hampshire bank's tokenized deposit is a deposit under existing law, the FDIC position as reported (Main, May 13). The Banking Department should issue guidance for state-chartered banks that issue tokenized deposits or join shared networks such as the BankChain Alliance, of which the New Hampshire Bankers Association is a member (Merrill, September 17) (drafting detail in Appendix K). State agencies may use bank-led networks for state payments where that saves money; the State should have no role in a network's governance, membership, or choice of vendor. The Department should report deposit trends quarterly, with a voluntary supplement from banks on outflows to stablecoin platforms, to test the estimates in §4.4. *Rationale:* community banks carry the deposit-flight risk (§4.4), and shared bank-led networks let them compete at scale (§4.5, §5.2, §11.2). **Recommendation 5. A safe harbor and binding answers for builders.** - **Safe harbor.** No person should be treated as an issuer, money transmitter, or custodian under the new chapter or RSA 399-G solely for developing, publishing, or maintaining software; operating a node or validator; or providing an interface through which users direct their own digital assets, if the person cannot move a user's assets on its own. - **The existing exemption.** The new chapter should not narrow RSA 399-G:3, VII, which exempts transfers of convertible virtual currency from money transmitter licensing (§8.1) (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **Binding answers.** The Banking Department and the Bureau of Securities Regulation should answer a complete request for a no-action or interpretive letter within 60 days. - **A sandbox.** The General Court should revisit a regulatory sandbox for activities outside the issuer chapter, such as tokenized-asset pilots, agent payments, and deposit-token networks. *Rationale:* without the CLARITY Act, builders have no federal statute to point to (§4.1), so a state statute and regulators who answer on a deadline would set New Hampshire apart. **Recommendation 6. An independent Office of Financial Innovation.** The General Court should establish a small Office of Financial Innovation as an independent agency, administratively attached to the Department of Administrative Services, led by a director appointed by the Governor and Council and advised by a board (drafting detail in Appendix K). The Office would be the state's front door for digital finance: contact point for firms, coordinator of the agencies in the field, adviser to the Governor and the Legislature, staff to the body under Recommendation 10, and intake point for the requests in Recommendation 5. It would have no licensing or supervisory power. A modest appropriation, later supplemented by fees, would fund it; no bank assessment money would. The model is the Office of Energy Innovation. *Rationale:* digital finance touches at least five state agencies, two of them absent from the Commission's membership (Moranti, December 10, 2025), and an independent office keeps the state's promoter and its supervisors separate. > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Establish an independent Office of Financial Innovation, administratively attached to the Department of Administrative Services, advisory and coordinating only. > *Possible alternatives:* place the office in the Banking Department, the Department of Business and Economic Affairs, or the State Treasury; rely on the body under Recommendation 10 alone; create no office. **Recommendation 7. Supervisory structure and federal partnerships.** Bill A should name the Banking Department as the State payment stablecoin regulator and authorize the federal relationships certification needs: Federal Reserve Board examination participation and information sharing; joint supervision above $10 billion; arrangements letting New Hampshire trust companies hold reserves and private keys for issuers chartered anywhere; cooperative agreements with other states; and contract examiners and CSBS networked supervision (drafting detail in Appendix K). The Bureau of Securities Regulation keeps tokenized securities under RSA 421-B; for federally registered funds, such as tokenized money market fund shares, its role is notice filings and antifraud enforcement. A memorandum of understanding between the two agencies should give each licensee a single lead examiner. *Rationale:* the Chair posed the supervisory question (May 4), and GENIUS draws the same line, treating payment stablecoins as neither securities nor commodities (Circle, August 19). > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Banking Department as the State payment stablecoin regulator; Bureau of Securities Regulation for tokenized securities; a memorandum of understanding between them; the federal agreements above. > *Possible alternatives:* Banking Department alone; Bureau of Securities Regulation alone; a new digital asset authority (Wyoming's direction, October 15, 2025). ### 12.2 Bill B: tokenized real-world assets *Committees: House Ways and Means and Commerce and Consumer Affairs; Senate Ways and Means and Commerce.* **Recommendation 8. A home for tokenized real-world assets.** - **Transfer tax.** Amend RSA 78-B so that an interest in a real estate holding company is taxed only when a person, or a group acting together, acquires a controlling interest, at a threshold the Department of Revenue Administration recommends with a revenue estimate (Whitlock proposed more than 25%, February 10). - **On-chain registers.** Provide that an entity's records may be kept on a blockchain, that an entry on a ledger the entity designates as its official register counts as registration and delivery under UCC Article 8, and that an LLC may elect Article 8 treatment for interests so registered (drafting detail in Appendix K). Plume recommended recognizing ledger-based shares (October 15, 2025). - **Securities guidance.** The Bureau of Securities Regulation should publish guidance confirming that RSA 421-B applies to tokenized securities as it does to securities recorded on paper, covering small and intrastate offerings for New Hampshire real estate tokens (drafting detail in Appendix K). *Rationale:* the transfer tax is the record's one concrete statutory barrier to tokenized real-world assets (§4.3), since a token's compliance check can allow or deny a transfer but cannot collect a tax (Whitlock, February 10). ### 12.3 Bill C: privacy in digital money *Committees: House and Senate Judiciary. Bill C stands apart from Bill A so that debate over law enforcement access cannot delay certification.* **Recommendation 9. Privacy in digital money, and limits on a retail CBDC.** Bill C should build on Article 2-b (§7.2) and the Right to Privacy Act, RSA 359-C: - **Coverage.** Extend RSA 359-C to stablecoin issuers, digital asset custodians, exchanges, and money transmitters holding residents' transaction records, so tokenized deposits and stablecoins are protected alike. - **The showing.** Require a search warrant or court order before a state agency obtains a person's transaction records from any of them, or buys the same data from an analytics firm or data broker. Keep RSA 359-C's existing exceptions and add consent and emergencies, with an order sought promptly afterward (drafting detail in Appendix K). - **State freezes.** A New Hampshire agency may freeze or seize a token only through state legal process, such as a warrant, attachment, or forfeiture. The GENIUS freeze mandate answers only federal orders (§11.3). - **Remedies and reporting.** Provide suppression of evidence obtained in violation, damages and fees, and an annual report from every state agency on requests, orders, and freezes. - **CBDC.** No state agency may issue, promote, pilot, or require use of a retail central bank digital currency, or condition a payment or service on its use (definition in Appendix K). This does not bar acceptance, which would conflict with payment choice. - **Payment choice.** Where a state agency accepts or pays in tokens, residents must have a non-token alternative; none may be required to hold a digital wallet or digital ID to receive a state payment or service; and state payments may not carry expiration dates or location limits beyond existing program law. *Rationale:* Parker Feld asked for a citizen opt-out, which the Chair endorsed under the principle "privacy in the private sphere, transparency in the government sphere" (May 4; §7.2), and Wyoming paired its token with a CBDC prohibition (October 15, 2025). > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Adopt Bill C on the base of RSA 359-C, with a warrant or court-order standard and the exceptions listed. > *Possible alternatives:* keep "legal process," which includes administrative subpoenas, as the standard; write a separate digital-money privacy chapter; make no CBDC provision. ### 12.4 Continuing work and agency action **Recommendation 10. One body to carry the work forward.** RSA 383:26 is repealed on November 1, 2026; the work should have one owner. If LSR 2027-0239 (§3.4) is introduced as a bill, the General Court should charge its task force with this agenda: progress toward certification (Recommendation 1), oversight of the trusts redraft (Recommendation 12), and the studies in Recommendation 13; if not, it should establish a successor body with similar membership. Either body should include the State Treasurer and the Department of Revenue Administration (Moranti, December 10, 2025), report by fixed dates, and be staffed by the Office (Recommendation 6). > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Ask that the task force proposed in LSR 2027-0239 carry this agenda, or establish a successor body if it does not advance. > *Possible alternatives:* a separate successor body regardless of LSR 2027-0239; no successor. **Recommendation 11. Federal engagement and interstate cooperation.** The Banking Department and the Bureau of Securities Regulation should comment on Treasury's certification rule by November 30, 2026 [Outside the record: 91 FR 61688], ask Treasury to confirm that Recommendation 9 does not count against substantial similarity, seek a pre-filing consultation, and track SEC and CFTC rulemaking and the CLARITY Act (September 17 action item). The Banking Department should explore shared examination and token interoperability with CSBS and New England regulators. If states form a consortium, for example through interstate compacts, it could create significant network effects (§4.5); New Hampshire should monitor it and may want to be an early participant, after study and due diligence. *Rationale:* Wyoming plans interstate compacts (October 15, 2025), and Lynq's advice was "don't go it alone" (May 13). > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Comment on Treasury's rule by November 30, 2026; explore interstate arrangements with CSBS and New England states; monitor any state consortium or compact and join early if study and due diligence support it; no compact legislation now. > *Possible alternatives:* propose a compact now; take no position. **Recommendation 12. Blockchain-based trusts: redraft for introduction no later than the 2028 session.** The Commission endorses Ian Huyett's concept (November 12, 2025); he noted that no other state's commission had taken up the subject (§9.1). The body under Recommendation 10 should oversee a redraft amending RSA 564-B:5-505A, with Attorney General and trust bar review, resolving the points in Appendix I. > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Endorse in concept; redraft in RSA 564-B with Attorney General and trust bar review, for introduction no later than the 2028 session. > *Possible alternatives:* endorse the draft for introduction as written; refer for study without endorsement. **Recommendation 13. Further study.** The body under Recommendation 10 should take up (drafting detail in Appendix K): - **A state token.** The State Treasury, with the Banking Department and the Department of Revenue Administration, should study a Wyoming-style token (§11.2). - **A tokenized municipal bond pilot,** in two phases, led by the New Hampshire Municipal Bond Bank and the State Treasurer (Plume, October 15, 2025; Whitlock, February 10). - **A special purpose vehicle framework** for holding the asset behind a token in a segregated, bankruptcy-remote entity (Plume, October 15, 2025). - **Tokenized money market fund shares** for state cash management, including the Public Deposit Investment Pool (Galdieri, January 14). - **Open questions:** liability for oracle, smart-contract, and AI-written code failures (April 6; May 4); agent transactions; algorithmic stablecoins (January 14; February 10); and business tax treatment of stablecoins and reserve income (March 10). ### 12.5 Considered and not recommended - **A state-issued token now.** The structural conflict (§11.2), unproven revenue, and start-up burden argue for study first (Recommendation 13). - **No statute, relying on tokenized deposits alone.** > [!question] PROPOSED for Commission vote > Do not adopt the no-statute baseline. Confirm by statute that bank tokenized deposits are deposits (Recommendation 4), but enact Recommendation 1. Relying only on tokenized deposits would let the January 18, 2028 certification window pass, leaving issuers no New Hampshire option and residents' stablecoins under other jurisdictions' rules. > *Possible alternative:* rely on tokenized deposits under existing law and revisit after 2028. - **A state bank.** Not practical, said the Chair, and unnecessary for a Roughrider-style network (Healey, September 17). - **The trusts draft as written** (§9; Recommendation 12). ### 12.6 Statutory elements with no new legislative recommendation - **Environmental protection (I(e)).** No new mechanism is needed. The frameworks recommended here regulate issuers, reserves, and records, not consensus methods; the smart-contract networks used for stablecoins and tokenized assets tend to use consensus mechanisms other than proof of work; and RSA 359-V:3 already protects node operation, mining, and staking (§7.3). - **Tokenized RWAs (I(b), (d)).** No new licensing statute: the RWAs in the record are securities or LLC interests already covered by RSA 421-B and federal law (§8.3); Recommendation 8 removes the one barrier found. ```mermaid --- config: flowchart: nodeSpacing: 25 rankSpacing: 35 --- flowchart TD A["Nov 1, 2026<br/>Report filed;<br/>RSA 383:26 repealed"] --> B["Nov 30, 2026<br/>Comments due on Treasury certification rule (Rec. 11)"] B --> D["Jan 18, 2027<br/>GENIUS effective (or 120 days after final rules)"] D --> C["2027 session<br/>Bill A (Recs. 1 to 7), Bill B (Rec. 8), Bill C (Rec. 9)"] C --> E["2027<br/>Banking Dept interim rules;<br/>conditional certification filing"] E --> F["Before Jan 18, 2028<br/>Complete NH<br/>certification filing"] C --> J["Office of Financial<br/>Innovation established<br/>(Rec. 6)"] J --> G["Task force or successor body: studies and trusts oversight (Recs. 10, 12, 13)"] G --> H["2028 session<br/>Trusts redraft introduced<br/>(Rec. 12)"] ``` *Figure 12. Recommendations roadmap. Federal dates are outside the record (congress.gov; Chapman tracker; 91 FR 61688), except January 18, 2028 (CSBS, March 10).* ## 13. Conclusion New Hampshire will not be the first state to act on stablecoins, but it can be the state that does it best. The Commission asks the Legislature to enact three bills in 2027: Bill A, a certifiable issuer framework with protections beyond the federal floor, clear rules for freezes and recalls, tokenized deposits, a safe harbor for builders, an independent Office of Financial Innovation, and a named regulator with the federal partnerships certification needs; Bill B, a home for tokenized real-world assets; and Bill C, privacy in digital money. It asks both agencies to comment on Treasury's certification rule by November 30, 2026, and the Banking Department to prepare interim rules and a conditional filing before January 18, 2028. And it asks that one body carry the work forward: the trusts redraft for the 2028 session, with the Attorney General and the trust bar, and the studies in Recommendation 13. ## Appendices - **A.** Full text of RSA 383:26 - **B.** Summary of each presentation, by meeting date - **C.** Minutes of all meetings, in chronological order. (The header of the December 10, 2025 minutes reads "November 12, 2025" in error.) - **D.** Glossary of terms - **E.** Public comments received on drafts - **F.** Bibliography and sources, including all items marked [Outside the record] - **G.** Statements of state departments - **H.** Supplemental statements of members - **I.** The blockchain-based trusts draft and the points a redraft should resolve (below) - **J.** The Commission's meetings (below) - **K.** Bill map and drafting detail (below) - **L.** GENIUS Act certification detail (below) - **M.** Presenters' interests (below) ### Appendix I. The blockchain-based trusts draft #### The draft statutory language Draft language, styled RSA 359-V:5, "Blockchain-Based Trusts Recognized," was provided to the Commission. In summary, it would: - **I. Jurisdiction:** New Hampshire courts, when RSA 564-B:2-202 is satisfied or the settlor directed someone in New Hampshire to create the smart contract. - **II. Impossibility presumption:** presume the defense for a person ordered to modify a smart contract, rebuttable by clear and convincing evidence that the contract is not decentralized. - **III. Spendthrift equivalence:** treat a qualifying smart contract as the functional equivalent of an irrevocable spendthrift trust, with the protections of RSA 564-B:5-502. - **IV. Wallet access:** bar compelling access to a wallet whose sole purpose is to receive and distribute funds from such a smart contract. - **V. Limits:** preserve a court's power to order a beneficiary to produce funds already received. The draft implements the first three proposals in §9.2 (jurisdiction, spendthrift protection, and the impossibility presumption). The 2026 Blockchain Basic Laws have since supplied the rest: RSA 359-V:1 defines "decentralized," "blockchain protocol," and "smart contract," and RSA 491:7-c authorizes a docket. [Outside the record: HB 639 (2026), Ch. 286.] #### Points for any redraft None of these issues goes to the merits of the idea; all go to whether the language would work. - **Numbering.** RSA 359-V:5 is already taken (severability). The draft needs a new section number and arguably belongs in the Trust Code, RSA 564-B. [Outside the record: HB 639 (2026), Ch. 286.] - **Citations.** Paragraph III cites "RSA 563-B:5-502" in one place and RSA 564-B elsewhere; the intended citation is likely RSA 564-B:5-502. [Outside the record: HB 1127 (2026)] RSA 545-A was repealed and replaced by RSA 545-B, the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act, effective August 31, 2026, so any cross-reference should cite 545-B. - **Paragraph V.** Its second sentence reads: "This section shall not mean that a person may be compelled to provide access to any wallet not described herein." Read literally, that protects wallets *outside* paragraph IV, apparently the opposite of the intended limit. The drafter should confirm the intended rule. - **The "no human back door" premise.** Many smart contracts include admin keys, oracles, upgrade paths, or governance votes that let someone alter outcomes, and the record shows such controls are common in token contracts (§3.1, §7.1). Proof of decentralization alone does not prove the defendant lacks control. Paragraph II should adopt RSA 359-V:1's definition and address these controls expressly. - **Trust elements.** Paragraph III does not address the trustee, beneficiaries, trust property, settlor intent, or governing law. - **Creditor protections.** The draft has no savings clause for bankruptcy, tax liens, forfeiture, or voidable transfers, and does not address RSA 564-B's existing limits on self-settled trusts. - **Existing self-settled trust law.** A redraft should amend RSA 564-B:5-505A, which already protects a settlor's interest under a spendthrift provision, and should address its exception creditors for child support and basic alimony, added effective August 31, 2026. [Outside the record: RSA 564-B:5-505A; 2026, 215.] - **Federal limits.** State law cannot bind a bankruptcy court applying 11 U.S.C. 548(e) or a federal court weighing a self-created impossibility defense. - **Balance of the record.** The Commission heard no opposing trust-law analysis and has not received a formal review from the Attorney General's office or the trust bar. ### Appendix J. The Commission's meetings | Date | Presenters | Principal topics | |---|---|---| | Sept 17, 2025 | (organizational) | Organization | | Oct 15, 2025 | Global Blockchain Business Council; Wyoming Stable Token Commission; Plume Network | Global landscape; Wyoming's state token; RWA platforms | | Nov 12, 2025 | Prof. Seth Oranburg (UNH Law); Ian Huyett (NH Blockchain Council); The Digital Chamber | GENIUS and CLARITY Acts; blockchain-based trusts; state approaches | | Dec 10, 2025 | Fortris; Hedera Foundation | Enterprise stablecoin use; network selection and governance | | Jan 14, 2026 | Anchorage Digital; Ceres Coin | Institutional adoption; tokenized money market fund share for government use | | Feb 10, 2026 | Digital Asset (Canton Network); Porcupine Properties | Tokenized collateral; tokenized equity in a New Hampshire real estate LLC | | Mar 10, 2026 | Conference of State Bank Supervisors; BitGo | GENIUS rulemaking and state regimes; stablecoin types and markets | | Apr 6, 2026 | Chainlink; LayerZero | Oracles; cross-chain interoperability and Wyoming's FRNT | | May 4, 2026 | Dr. Karen Parker Feld; Chair Keith Ammon | "A solution in search of a problem?"; the Chair's year in review | | May 13, 2026 | Lynq; Vantage Bank (Hazel Network, with Custodia Bank) | Tokenized fund shares as collateral; bank tokenized deposits | | Aug 19, 2026 | Elliptic; Circle; Prof. Oranburg | Blockchain analytics; GENIUS federal and state roles; Senate CLARITY changes | | Sept 17, 2026 | Andy Schwab (member); Chainlink; Fiserv; NH Bankers Association / BankChain Alliance | Live wallet and DeFi demonstration; agentic payments; Roughrider Coin; a bank-owned payments network | *Table J.1. The Commission's meetings.* ### Appendix K. Bill map and drafting detail | Bill | Contents | House committee | Senate committee | Intended funding | Related filings | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | A. Certification and consumer trust | Recommendations 1 to 7 | Commerce and Consumer Affairs | Commerce | Issuer fees, after a start-up appropriation for examiners repaid from fees; a modest appropriation for the Office of Financial Innovation; no bank assessment money | LSR 2027-0200 (Rep. John Hunt), to be merged | | B. Tokenized real-world assets | Recommendation 8 | Ways and Means; Commerce and Consumer Affairs | Ways and Means; Commerce | Department of Revenue Administration revenue estimate; no new appropriation | None known | | C. Privacy in digital money | Recommendation 9 | Judiciary | Judiciary | Agency reporting within existing budgets | HB 1232 (2024), interim study | | Continuing work | Recommendations 10 to 13 (Recommendation 11 by agency action) | As assigned | As assigned | Within the Office's budget | LSR 2027-0239 (Rep. John Schneller) | #### Drafting detail This subsection holds the statutory specifications and supporting references for the recommendations in §12. **Bill A** *Recommendation 1 (issuer framework).* - **Conditional filing.** [Outside the record: Treasury's interim final rule (91 FR 61688) treats any filing by January 18, 2028 as meeting the deadline, even a conditional one, but begins formal review only when a filing is complete and unconditional.] - **Trust company eligibility.** An eligible trust company's activities should be confined to those GENIUS permits, with holders' claims to reserves ranked first. [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 2(31), 4(a)(7), and 11.] The state's trust industry has drawn firms from out of state (§8.1). - **Licensing clock.** The 90-day decision period is faster than the 120 days the federal path allows. [Outside the record: GENIUS Act section 5(d).] - **Funding.** The start-up appropriation is needed because one or two licensees cannot carry an examination program alone (Department, May 13; Shrago, March 10). *Recommendation 2 (protections beyond the floor).* - **Reserve safety.** Fully reserved stablecoins can still slip. [Outside the record: USDC fell to about 87 cents in March 2023 while part of its reserves was held at the failed Silicon Valley Bank (CNBC).] - **Disclosure.** Compliance with federal disclosures should count where they cover the same ground. *Recommendation 3 (monitoring, freezing, and reversing tokens).* - **Legal basis.** The issuer's federal duties include the GENIUS requirement that issuers be able to block, freeze, and reject impermissible transactions. [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 2(16) and 4(a)(5).] - **Due process exceptions.** The federal-law exceptions to notice include suspicious activity reports and sanctions blocks. Where a holder cannot be identified, public posting suffices. *Recommendation 4 (tokenized deposits).* The Banking Department's guidance should cover reconciliation with core deposit systems, which law governs transfers and errors, loss allocation among network members, and examination expectations. *Recommendation 5 (builders).* - **Safe harbor model.** [Outside the record: Utah HB 230 (2025) exempts node operation and software development from money transmitter licensing.] - **Existing exemption.** The new chapter should state that it does not narrow RSA 399-G:3, VII, as applied to persons other than issuers. - **Sandbox history.** [Outside the record: HB 1507 (2024), a Banking Department sandbox bill, was sent to interim study.] *Recommendation 6 (Office of Financial Innovation).* - **Attachment.** [Outside the record: RSA 21-G:10 lets an attached agency exercise its powers "independently of the department," which provides only administrative support.] - **Advisory board.** Legislators from both chambers, a New Hampshire banker, an issuer or builder, and a University of New Hampshire representative, with the Banking Commissioner and the Director of the Bureau of Securities Regulation as non-voting members. - **Agencies coordinated.** The Banking Department, the Bureau of Securities Regulation, the Secretary of State's DAO registry, the State Treasury, and the Department of Revenue Administration. The Commission's membership did not include the State Treasury or the Department of Revenue Administration (Moranti, December 10, 2025). - **Model.** The Office of Energy Innovation advises the Governor, agencies, and the Legislature on developing a new industry. [Outside the record: RSA 12-P:7-b.] *Recommendation 7 (supervisory structure).* Joint supervision above $10 billion is with the federal regulator; the trust company arrangements rest on information sharing with the Federal Reserve Board; cooperative agreements with other states provide for nationwide operation. [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 4(c)(3), 4(d), 7, and 10(a)(1)(B).] **Bill B** *Recommendation 8 (tokenized real-world assets).* - **Transfer tax.** The controlling-interest test should count an acquisition in one transfer or a series of transfers within a set period. - **On-chain registers.** Provide that an entity's records under RSA 293-A and RSA 304-C may be kept on a blockchain; that an entry on a ledger the entity designates as its official register counts as registration of transfer under RSA 382-A, Article 8, Part 4 (RSA 382-A:8-401 et seq.) and as delivery under RSA 382-A:8-301(b); and that an LLC operating agreement may elect Article 8 treatment for interests so registered. New Hampshire already allows uncertificated shares and electronic records [Outside the record: RSA 293-A:6.26 and 16.01]; this step goes further, as Delaware did in 2017 [Outside the record: Delaware General Corporation Law sections 219 and 224]. Tokenized shares and LLC interests are governed by Article 8 of the UCC and entity law, not by Article 12, so modernizing ownership records is what lets a token carry the interest it represents. - **Securities guidance.** The guidance should be consistent with the SEC staff's view that a security's format and recordkeeping method do not change how securities law applies. [Outside the record: SEC staff statement on tokenized securities, January 28, 2026.] - **Mandate.** RSA 383:26, I names tokenized real-world assets alongside stable tokens. The pilots in Recommendation 13 build on Bill B. **Bill C** *Recommendation 9 (privacy in digital money).* - **Data brokers.** [Outside the record: Montana closed the data broker route for government purchases in 2025 (SB 282).] - **Exceptions.** Keep RSA 359-C's existing exceptions for supervisory agencies and for child support, medical assistance, and adult protective investigations, and state whether investigative demands by the Attorney General and the Bureau of Securities Regulation keep a notice-and-challenge route. [Outside the record: RSA 359-C:4 and 359-C:11.] - **CBDC definition.** A retail CBDC is a Federal Reserve digital liability available to the public, excluding wholesale settlement, FedNow, tokenized deposits, and stablecoins. [Outside the record: New Hampshire's UCC already excludes government currency in electronic form from the definition of money (RSA 382-A:1-201(b)(24); 2023, 236), and federal law temporarily bars a Federal Reserve retail CBDC through 2030 (P.L. 119-101, Title XI; CRS IF11471).] The provision is durable insurance more than an immediate change. [Outside the record: a 2024 bill to bar state agencies from accepting a CBDC (HB 1232) was sent to interim study.] - **Record.** Parker Feld asked how issuer freeze powers differ from a CBDC and asked for a citizen opt-out modeled on Idaho SB 1299, and Schwab spoke for preserving it (May 4). **Continuing work** *Recommendation 11 (federal engagement).* Members saw collaboration as avoiding duplication (November 12, 2025), and LayerZero described shared liquidity with separate issuance (April 6). *Recommendation 13 (further study).* - **A state token.** Net yield given Wyoming's 102% reserve requirement and rate sensitivity; start-up and operating cost (October 15, 2025); the deposit effect on New Hampshire banks netted against lost lending and the Banking Department's assessment base (§11.2); and whether a closed bank network could capture the benefit without a state issuer (September 17). Wyoming went first, and the record holds no figures on its adoption or revenue (§8.2); Lynq's advice was "Don't go first" (May 13). - **Municipal bond pilot phases.** First an institutional, permissioned issuance with bond counsel's tax and registration opinions, then retail denominations once disclosure and dealer rules are resolved (Plume, October 15, 2025; Whitlock, February 10). [Outside the record: Quincy, Massachusetts issued about $10 million in blockchain-based bonds in April 2024 on J.P. Morgan's Onyx platform (The Bond Buyer).] - **Special purpose vehicles.** The framework should hold the asset in a segregated, bankruptcy-remote entity, drawing on Delaware statutory trusts and series LLCs as well as Bermuda's model (Plume, October 15, 2025). - **State cash management.** The State Treasurer operates the Public Deposit Investment Pool (Galdieri, January 14). [Outside the record: RSA 6:45 to 6:47.] - **Open questions.** A default rule binding a principal to an agent's transactions within a mandate the user sets; algorithmic stablecoins, distinguished from overcollateralized designs (January 14; February 10); and how the business profits and business enterprise taxes treat stablecoins and reserve income, including BitGo's suggestion to treat stablecoins as cash equivalents (March 10). ### Appendix L. GENIUS Act certification detail This appendix holds the statutory and rulemaking detail summarized in §4.1. **Who may issue.** [Outside the record: the Act lists a subsidiary of an insured depository institution among permitted issuers (GENIUS Act, section 2(23)); foreign issuers are covered by section 18 (Figure 4).] **Securities and commodities.** GENIUS declares payment stablecoins neither securities nor commodities (Circle, August 19). Tokenized fund shares differ: Oranburg observed that the GENIUS bar on issuer yield would not reach Lynq because Lynq is a security (May 13). **Nationwide reach and host states.** [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 4(c)(3), 4(d), and 7(f).] Host states' licensing laws do not apply to an issuer licensed by a certified state; their other laws apply only as they would to a federally licensed issuer, with the home state's law filling any gap, and their consumer protection laws still apply. **Deadline, renewal, and expedited review.** [Outside the record: GENIUS Act sections 4(c)(4), 4(c)(7), and 20.] The state deadline is one year after the Act's effective date, which will be no later than January 18, 2027. Certification must be renewed every year. Expedited review is reserved for regimes in effect within 180 days of the Act's enactment, which New Hampshire's will not be. [Outside the record: the Act takes effect on January 18, 2027, or 120 days after final rules, whichever is earlier (Chapman tracker).] **Who certifies.** CSBS said states submit frameworks to Treasury (March 10); Circle named Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC (August 19, reconstructed minutes). [Outside the record: Treasury's interim final rule of September 30, 2026 (91 FR 61688) sets the procedures of the Stablecoin Certification Review Committee, chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury, whose other members are the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board (or the Vice Chair for Supervision) and the Chairman of the FDIC; A filing by January 18, 2028 meets the deadline even if conditional or incomplete, but it is formally submitted for review only when it is complete and unconditional.] **Where the rules stand.** As of March 10, only the OCC had published its proposal (CSBS). [Outside the record: OCC Bulletin 2026-3, February 25, 2026 (91 FR 10202); Treasury's proposed rule on "substantially similar" state regimes, April 3, 2026 (91 FR 16844), requiring state outcomes "at least as stringent and protective"; FDIC and NCUA proposals, May 18, 2026.] **The OCC's proposal as a signpost.** The OCC proposed 1:1 redemption within two business days, a 20-day average portfolio maturity, $5 million minimum capital, twelve months of operating expenses held as a backstop, and a 12-month examination cycle; CSBS stressed that states keep discretion in meeting "substantially similar" (March 10). **Federal reach into state issuers.** CSBS flagged friction: federal regulators may act against a state issuer in "unusual and exigent circumstances," and the $10 billion threshold is not inflation-adjusted (March 10). [Outside the record: GENIUS Act section 7(e) gives that power to the Federal Reserve Board for any state qualified issuer and to the Comptroller for nonbank state issuers.] **Waivers above $10 billion.** CSBS suggested Wyoming may have a stronger waiver case because its program predates the Act (March 10). [Outside the record: GENIUS Act section 4(d)(3)(C)(ii) presumes a waiver for issuers from a certified state regime established before the 90 days ending on enactment. New Hampshire's would not qualify, so its issuers above $10 billion would rely on the ordinary criteria, which include the state regulator's experience.] **Yield.** [Outside the record: GENIUS Act section 4(a)(11) bars issuers from paying yield and does not name affiliates or exchanges.] **The CLARITY Act.** The Chair reported that the Senate did not pass it (September 17). [Outside the record: Senate cloture failed on September 15, 2026 (Troutman; DLA Piper); the SEC proposed "Regulation Crypto Assets" on August 18, 2026.] ### Appendix M. Presenters' interests Several presenters offer products related to what they described; this table notes each interest and where the report relies on that presenter. | Presenter | Interest in the subject | Where the report relies on it | |---|---|---| | Fiserv (Joe Healey) | Sells the Roughrider platform and the FIUSD stablecoin | Bank-led designs; closed bank networks | | Vantage Bank (Shawn Main) | Sells the Hazel tokenized-deposit product | Tokenized deposits; deposit-flight scenario | | Chainlink | Sells data, interoperability, and agent-payment services | Proof of reserve; agentic payments | | LayerZero | Built Wyoming's FRNT; sells interoperability | Wyoming; cross-chain transfers | | Plume Network | Operates a tokenized-asset network | Tokenized real-world assets; proposals for New Hampshire | | Lynq Network | Operates a tokenized settlement network | Tokenized collateral; advice to states | | Ceres Coin | Proposed its own product for state benefit programs | Tokenized fund shares | | Digital Asset (Canton Network) | Operates the Canton Network | Tokenized collateral; privacy design | | Circle | Issues USDC | GENIUS Act roles | | BitGo, Anchorage Digital, Fortris, Hedera, Elliptic | Sell custody, network, or analytics services | Token types; custody; privacy; illicit finance | | Porcupine Properties | Plans to sell real estate tokens | Tokenized real estate; transfer tax | | New Hampshire Bankers Association | Represents banks; member of the BankChain Alliance | Deposit flight; BankChain | | Global Blockchain Business Council; The Digital Chamber | Industry associations | Landscape; state approaches | | Ian Huyett | Co-author of the trust proposal; volunteer board member, New Hampshire Blockchain Council | Blockchain-based trusts | *Table M.1. Presenters' interests. Members' affiliations appear in the front matter.*