AUSTIN, Texas (March 10, 2025) – A bill filed in the Texas Senate would establish a 100 percent gold and silver-backed digital currency recognized as legal tender in the state.
Sen. Bryan Hughes filed Senate Bill 665 (SB665). The legislation would require the state comptroller to establish and issue gold and silver specie, defined as “a precious metal stamped into coins of uniform shape, size, design, content, and purity, suitable for or customarily used as currency.” The comptroller would also be required to establish a transactional currency backed 100 percent by gold and silver held in the Texas Bullion Depository created in 2015.
Under the law, both specie and gold/silver-backed digital currency would be considered “legal tender in payment of debt.”
The digital currency would represent gold and/or silver backed by metals stored in trust at the depository, allowing electronic transfers based on precise fractional troy ounce measurements. The depository would oversee all transfers, ensuring they remain fully backed by physical gold or silver.
As legal tender, both the physical specie and gold and silver-backed digital currency could be used by individuals, businesses, and the state for the payment of debts, taxes, and everyday transactions at the discretion of the recipient – offering an alternative to inflationary fiat.
By establishing a framework for sound money, SB665 would position Texas at the forefront of efforts to reduce reliance on the Federal Reserve’s fiat monetary system.
IMPACT
The passage of this legislation would create a sound money alternative to U.S. dollars in both physical and electronic form.
Using gold and silver-backed transactional currency, any person or entity would be able to do business using a debit card that seamlessly converts gold and silver to fiat currency in the background. Private individuals and businesses would be able to purchase goods and services using assets held in the Texas Bullion Depository in the same way they use dollars held in a bank today.
Gold and silver-backed transactional currency would give people a way to shield themselves from the rapid loss of purchasing power inherent in the fiat dollar.
BACKGROUND
The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 10, “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Currently, all debts and taxes in most states are either paid with Federal Reserve Notes (dollars) which were authorized as legal tender by Congress, or with coins issued by the U.S. Treasury – very few of which have gold or silver in them.
The Federal Reserve destroys this constitutional monetary system by creating a monopoly based on its fiat paper currency. Without the backing of gold or silver, the central bank can easily create money out of thin air.
This not only devalues your purchasing power over time; it also allows the federal government to borrow and spend far beyond what would be possible in a sound money system. Without the Fed, the U.S. government wouldn’t be able to maintain all of its unconstitutional wars and programs. The Federal Reserve is the engine that drives the most powerful government in the history of the world.
State laws that facilitate and encourage the use of sound money create a playing field where people can push back against the Fed’s monetary malfeasance. Ultimately, it could create a scenario where people can drive out the “bad” fiat money with “good” sound money.
WHAT’S NEXT
SB665 was referred to the Senate Finance Committee where it must get a hearing and pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.
