North Carolina HB 920: Digital Asset Freedom Act / Virtual Currency Kiosk Consumer Protection Act

HB 920 was filed on April 10, 2025, passed first reading on April 14, 2025, and was referred through House committees including Commerce and Economic Development, Finance, and Rules. On June 2, 2026, the House reported a favorable committee substitute and re-referred the measure to Finance. LegiScan lists the bill as introduced with 25% progression, pending in House Finance, and with the latest text marked amended.

The title change is material for editors and readers. The University of North Carolina School of Government’s Legislative Reporting Service notes that the committee substitute changed the long title; the original long title would have allowed digital assets in economic transactions and tax payments, while the substituted title is an act to enact the Virtual Currency Kiosk Consumer Protection Act.

The introduced version would have created Article 52 of Chapter 66, cited as the North Carolina Digital Asset Freedom Act. It applied only to digital assets that met detailed criteria for decentralization, market longevity, liquidity, regulatory classification, proof-of-work security, censorship resistance, uptime, and predictable supply. The introduced text also would have recognized qualifying digital assets as a valid medium of exchange and stated that a transaction could not be denied legal effect solely because it used a qualifying digital asset.

The first edition also proposed allowing taxpayers to choose a qualifying digital asset to pay taxes to the Department of Revenue. It would have required dollar-equivalent reporting using the digital asset-to-dollar exchange rate at the time of payment or transaction and would have directed the Department of Revenue to maintain daily exchange rates. Those provisions are historical context for the bill’s original “freedom act” framing, but they do not appear in the second edition that is currently before the House.

The current second edition would add a new Article 26 to Chapter 53. It defines virtual currency, virtual currency kiosks, kiosk operators, digital wallets, blockchain analytics, new customers, and related terms. It places supervision with the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks and states that federal law, including the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA PATRIOT Act, governs to the extent of any inconsistency.

• Disclosures: kiosk operators would have to provide risk, terms-and-conditions, warning, fee, exchange-rate, spread, and liability disclosures before customer transactions.
• Receipts: customers would receive written or electronic receipts containing transaction, operator, fee, exchange-rate, refund-policy, and Commissioner contact information.
• Fraud controls: operators would have to use blockchain analytics, provide live weekday customer service, and maintain written anti-fraud policies.
• Licensing: operators that own, operate, solicit, market, advertise, or facilitate kiosks in North Carolina would be treated as engaged in money transmission and would require licensure under Article 16B of Chapter 53.
• Limits and remedies: the bill would set daily transaction limits of $1,000 for new virtual currency customers and $2,500 for existing customers, provide refund and cancellation rights in specified cases, and cap aggregate kiosk fees and charges at 3%.

Violations would be treated as unfair trade practices, fraudulent inducement of a kiosk transaction would be a Class 1 misdemeanor, and local governments would retain authority to impose nonconflicting or greater kiosk requirements. If enacted in its current form, the Commissioner would have to adopt implementing rules by December 1, 2026, and most provisions would become effective December 1, 2026.