The New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to adopt the new version of Chapter 12 of the Universal Commercial Code, or UCC, which will govern transfers of digital assets. The chapter is still in draft form, but if HB1503 is signed into law, New Hampshire will be the first U.S. state to adopt the chapter. Like the draft chapter of the UCC, the bill — titled “Exempting the developer, seller, or facilitator of the exchange of an open blockchain token from certain securities laws” — seeks to create a “workaround” to make it easier to buy and sell cryptocurrencies by stipulating conditions under which “a developer or seller of an open blockchain token shall not be deemed the issuer of a security.” It passed by a vote of 187 to 150. The UCC is a set of model l...
Chris Sununu, who has served as the governor of New Hampshire since 2017, has established a commission aimed at investigating the technology and laws around digital assets in addition to recommending new legislation. On Wednesday, the New Hampshire Governor’s office announced it would be issuing Executive Order 2022-1 to create the Governor’s Commission on Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets. Governor Sununu cited the “rising use and acceptance” of crypto as well as the growth of distributed ledger and blockchain technologies in his decision to establish the commission. According to the executive order, the crypto commission will have 180 days — until Aug. 8 — to submit a report to officials within the New Hampshire state government consisting of a “review and investigation regarding...