Idaho Blockchain Basics Act

The Idaho Blockchain Basics Act profile refers to Idaho House Bill 585 from the 2024 Regular Session, a digital-assets bill that was not enacted. The official bill title was “Amends and adds to existing law to establish provisions for central bank digital currencies,” and the engrossed text was “relating to digital assets.” As of June 3, 2026, the bill’s 2024 record is closed: H 585 failed on the House floor on March 19, 2024, after a 30-40 vote and was filed in the Office of the Chief Clerk.

Because the official text did not include a statutory short-title section naming a “Blockchain Basics Act,” editors should treat that phrase as a reader-facing or model-policy label rather than the bill’s legal title. The Idaho bill number H 585 was later reused in 2026 for unrelated electrical, plumbing, and HVAC inspection legislation, so citations should specify the 2024 Regular Session.

What the Idaho digital-assets bill would have done

The proposal would have amended Idaho’s existing digital-assets chapter in Title 28 and related tax and state-government provisions. It defined terms including blockchain, blockchain protocol, digital asset mining, digital asset mining business, hardware wallet, node, and self-hosted wallet. It also would have revised Idaho’s Uniform Commercial Code definition of “money” so that a central bank digital currency, as defined in proposed Section 67-2360, would not be included.

• Mining protections: State agencies and local governments would not have been able to impose requirements on digital asset mining businesses that were not also imposed on data centers in the same jurisdiction.
• Home and industrial mining: The engrossed bill would have prevented local rules that barred qualifying industrial-zone mining or compliant private-residence mining.
• Licensing treatment: Persons engaged in digital asset mining, and persons operating nodes or transferring digital assets on a blockchain protocol, would not have needed a money transmitter license solely for those activities.
• Wallet and payment use: The bill would have barred state and local governments from prohibiting, restricting, or impairing a person’s ability to use digital assets for legal goods or services or to self-custody digital assets through a self-hosted or hardware wallet.

CBDC and tax provisions

The proposed CBDC section would have applied to Idaho state government, counties, cities, and local political subdivisions. It would have prohibited those public bodies from accepting, transacting, trading, or exchanging a central bank digital currency as payment; participating in Federal Reserve CBDC tests; establishing CBDC programs; participating in federal programs contingent on CBDC use; or accepting CBDC-conditioned federal grants or awards. The section also would have treated intentional violations by public officers or employees as misuse of public money.

The tax amendment would have added digital assets, when used as tender for executing a purchase, to Idaho’s intangible personal property exemption. The engrossed bill listed January 1, 2025, as the proposed effective date. Because the bill failed in the House, that date did not become an operative legal effective date.

Status and editorial context

H 585 was introduced on February 16, 2024, by the House State Affairs Committee. It was printed and referred to the House Business Committee on February 19, reported out with a do-pass recommendation on March 1, moved through amendment and engrossing steps in mid-March, and failed on third reading on March 19. FastDemocracy’s record lists Rep. Elaine Price as floor sponsor, while LegiScan identifies the measure as a committee bill sponsored by the House State Affairs Committee.

For CryptoSlate taxonomy and archive purposes, this should be treated as a failed Idaho digital-assets bill rather than an active statute. It is relevant to state-level debates over digital asset mining, self-custody, money transmission, CBDC restrictions, and tax treatment, but it did not amend Idaho law.