South Dakota HB 1155: State Bitcoin Investment Bill

HB 1155 targeted state public funds made available for investment. It did not propose a consumer-facing crypto licensing regime, a tax rule, or a mandate for private investors. Instead, the bill would have expanded the list of permissible investment categories under S.D. Codified Laws § 4-5-26 to include Bitcoin meeting the bill’s new sections. The official text defined Bitcoin by reference to the decentralized peer-to-peer blockchain network that originated with the January 3, 2009 genesis block and the chain recognized by independent nodes as having the greatest cumulative proof of work.

• Investment authority: HB 1155 would have allowed the State Investment Council to invest state moneys in Bitcoin, subject to the bill’s limits and custody rules.
• Ten percent cap: The amount invested in Bitcoin could not exceed 10% of the state moneys made available for investment.
• Holding options: Bitcoin acquired as an investment would have to be held directly by the State Investment Council through a secure custody solution, by a qualified custodian, or through an exchange-traded product issued by a registered investment company.
• Qualified custodian: The bill defined a qualified custodian to include a federal or state-chartered bank, trust company, or special purpose depository institution or company regulated by the Division of Banking and authorized to maintain custody of digital assets.

The bill’s most detailed provisions focused on custody. A secure custody solution would have required exclusive State Investment Council control of the private key, encrypted hardware-secured storage, authentication keys maintained on a government device, and hardware containing the private key in at least two geographically diverse secure data centers. It also would have required multi-party governance for transaction authorization, user access controls, activity logs, disaster recovery, regular code audits, penetration testing, and prompt remediation of identified vulnerabilities.

Representative Logan Manhart introduced HB 1155 in the House, with Senator Tom Pischke listed as a Senate prime sponsor and Representatives Timothy Goodwin, Phil Jensen, and Dylan Jordan listed as House sponsors. The bill was first read in the House and referred to the House Commerce and Energy Committee on January 27, 2026. On February 6, 2026, the committee scheduled the bill for hearing and then voted 10-3 to defer it to the 41st legislative day.

South Dakota legislative rules describe a motion to defer indefinitely or to the 41st day as final action. Because the 2026 session concluded on March 30, 2026 without enactment, this profile treats HB 1155 as an inactive bill rather than pending legislation. The controlled status taxonomy maps the bill to Expired, while the bill-detail field records the legislative stage as dead.

HB 1155 was limited to South Dakota state investment authority. If enacted, it would have affected how the State Investment Council could allocate certain state moneys and how any Bitcoin exposure would be custody-managed. It would not have required the state to buy Bitcoin, and it would not have directly changed obligations for private crypto users, miners, exchanges, or custodians outside the state-investment context.