New Hampshire came within a single vote of making history. Instead, the state’s Executive Council rejected a $100 million Bitcoin-backed municipal bond proposal in a 3-2 vote on July 8, effectively shelving what would have been the first state-backed Bitcoin bonded structure anywhere in the country.
The proposal had serious backing, too. Governor Kelly Ayotte supported it publicly, Moody’s had already assigned it a provisional rating, and the state’s Business Finance Authority had signed off on the conduit bond structure months ago.
What the bond would have actually done
The bonds were structured as revenue bonds, meaning they carried no recourse to state credit or taxpayer funds. The money would have financed private Bitcoin purchases through a CleanSpark-related entity called NH CleanSpark Borrower Trust. CleanSpark is a publicly traded Bitcoin mining firm that would have held the purchased Bitcoin as collateral in a segregated trust.
The key safeguard was a 160% overcollateralization requirement. For every dollar of bond debt, CleanSpark would need to hold $1.60 worth of Bitcoin in the trust.
