Arizona moved closer this week to setting up a public reserve of cryptocurrency after lawmakers pushed a bill forward that names XRP among the tokens that could be held.

The push came after a committee vote that cleared one of the early hurdles for Senate Bill SB1649, and the mention of XRP has already drawn attention from traders and public officials who track crypto policy.

According to reports, the measure won a 4–2 vote on February 16 and now heads toward the next steps in the chamber where it started.

The vote came in a session run by the Arizona Senate Finance Committee, which backed language allowing the state treasurer to hold, custody, and invest digital assets that end up in state hands.

Reports note the measure would cover coins seized in law enforcement actions or surrendered to the state, and it would authorize modern custody options and regulated exchange-traded vehicles for safekeeping.

The plan is straightforward on paper: create a fund, transfer qualifying assets into a managed reserve, and let officials use advanced custody tools to manage risk.

Reports say XRP is on the list of eligible assets. That inclusion puts a spotlight on a token that has faced regulatory uncertainty in the past but also has a vocal group of supporters who argue it has a use case in cross-border payments.

Some people see the move as a step toward routine public-sector dealings with cryptocurrencies; other observers warn it could raise legal, accounting, and operational questions that are not yet fully answered.

Traders reacted with a mix of caution and optimism. A handful of market watchers noted that any state-level acceptance of a specific token can nudge sentiment, even if the actual impact on supply and demand is limited.

Legal experts will likely scrutinize the bill’s text closely if it advances, especially around custody rules and how the fund values and reports holdings.

There are also practical matters: who will audit these assets, how will they be insured, and what governance rules will guide when and how the fund can buy, sell, or hold tokens.

At the time of writing, XRP was trading at $1.46, up 0.7% and 6.7% in the daily and weekly frames.

Featured image from Gemini, chart from TradingView

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