Georgia SB 178 State Depository Board Bitcoin Investment Bill

SB 178 focused on public treasury authority rather than private crypto activity. The introduced text would have amended O.C.G.A. Section 50-17-63 to add Bitcoin to the list of investments the State Depository Board may permit for the state treasurer. It defined Bitcoin as the decentralized digital currency hosted on the public blockchain of the same name.

• Board approval model: the bill would not have created an automatic treasury purchase mandate. It would have allowed the State Depository Board to permit the state treasurer to invest in Bitcoin.
• Five-percent cap: the proposed new Code Section 50-17-68 would have barred the board from permitting more than 5% of any fund to be invested in Bitcoin.
• Bitcoin-only framing: the operative investment authority was directed to Bitcoin, although the custody provisions used the broader phrase “digital assets acquired pursuant to this chapter.”
• ETP route: the bill contemplated holding exposure through an exchange traded product issued by a registered investment company.

The bill’s asset-handling provisions were unusually detailed for a state treasury proposal. Any digital assets acquired under the bill would have had to be held directly through a secure custody solution, on behalf of the state by a qualified custodian, or through an exchange traded product issued by a registered investment company.

The proposed definition of “qualified custodian” covered federal or state chartered banks, trust companies, special purpose depository institutions, or state-regulated companies that hold digital assets for an approved exchange traded product. The “secure custody solution” definition included government-only private-key access, encrypted key environments, restrictions on smartphone access, geographically diversified secure data centers, multiparty transaction governance, user-access controls, audit logging, disaster recovery, code audits, and penetration testing.

SB 178 also would have allowed the board to permit loans of digital assets, but only if the loan did not increase financial risk to the state. That provision should be read as proposed legislative text rather than current Georgia law.

SB 178 was a Georgia public funds bill. It would not have created a retail crypto licensing framework, consumer disclosure regime, securities exemption, tax rule, or private custody safe harbor. Its direct actors were the State Depository Board and the Office of the State Treasurer, and its legal effect would have been limited to state treasury investment authority if enacted.

Substantively, the bill fits within government crypto holdings, with secondary relevance to custody, banking and financial access, and the regulatory perimeter for exchange traded crypto exposure. The asset-class focus is Bitcoin.

SB 178 was filed in the Senate hopper on February 13, 2025 and was read and referred on February 18, 2025. The final official Senate composite status for the 2026 session still showed SB 178 in the Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee with no committee report, floor vote, cross-chamber passage, governor action, act number, or effective date.

Georgia explains that its General Assembly runs in two-year cycles, and that if a bill does not pass in the second year, a future effort must start over. This profile therefore treats SB 178 as expired after the 2025-2026 General Assembly, while preserving its text as an important state-level Bitcoin treasury proposal.