Texas Bitcoin reserve makes first $5M bet on BlackRock’s IBIT ETF

Texas has created a state-run Bitcoin reserve and, according to new reports, opened it with a $5 million position in BlackRock’s IBIT ETF as prices slid below 90,000 dollars. The trade details have not yet appeared in state filings.

Texas executes first trade from its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 21 into law on June 21, 2025, creating the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve as a stand-alone fund outside the state treasury and empowering the comptroller to buy, hold, and manage Bitcoin and other large-cap digital assets.

A companion measure, HB 4488, updated the state’s Manual of Accounts and locked the reserve into statute as fund 1018, reinforcing that it sits outside routine “fund sweeps” into general revenue.

The law followed months of debate over whether the state should treat Bitcoin as a strategic asset. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick hailed the bipartisan passage of SB 21 as a step to “make a Texas Bitcoin Reserve a priority,” in a statement from his office on March 6, 2025.

According to a Bitcoin Magazine report, the state executed its first Bitcoin exposure on November 20, 2025 by purchasing 5 million dollars’ worth of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (ticker IBIT) when BTC traded near 87,000 dollars.

Why Texas picked BlackRock’s IBIT for its opening move

The reported first purchase used BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, a spot Bitcoin product that holds BTC with Coinbase Prime as custodian and seeks to mirror the underlying price.

Since its launch in January 2024, IBIT has become the dominant U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF by assets and daily volume, drawing tens of billions of dollars in institutional and retail flows.

If the reported 5 million dollar Texas allocation is accurate, it lands in a market that had just pulled back. Bitcoin slipped into the high-88,000-dollar range on November 19, 2025, a seven-month low after trading above 96,000 dollars earlier in the month.

How Texas compares with New Hampshire and Arizona

Texas is not the first state to pass a strategic Bitcoin reserve law. New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte signed HB 302 on May 6, 2025, authorizing the state treasurer to place up to 5 percent of certain public funds into Bitcoin and other assets with market caps above 500 billion dollars. These assets are held either in regulated custody or via an exchange-traded product.

Arizona followed on May 7, 2025, when Governor Katie Hobbs signed HB 2749, creating a Bitcoin and Digital Assets Reserve Fund seeded with profits and staking rewards from unclaimed crypto held by the state.

What makes Texas’ different is that SB 21 and HB 4488 create the first stand-alone, publicly funded Bitcoin reserve outside the usual state treasury structure. They envision “tens of millions of dollars” in potential BTC exposure over time.

SB 21 also directs the comptroller to keep Bitcoin in cold storage, subject to strict security standards and periodic reports to lawmakers on holdings, market value, and performance.