Arizona last night signed a law allowing the state to hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the second such law inked over the past week after New Hampshire on Tuesday became the first state to pass some kind of reserve legislation.

Why it matters: Reserves for bitcoin became a national issue after then presidential candidate Donald Trump made the idea of bitcoin strategic reserves into a topic.

• It has spread ever since the election, with half the country's state legislatures at least floating the idea.

Friction point: Arizona's passage was far from smooth sailing. The state's Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, vetoed a separate bill on the measure last week after it cleared Arizona's second chamber.

• It was the fact that crypto holdings could reach state retirement funds that drew side-eye from the governor.
• "Arizonans' retirement funds are not the place for the state to try untested investments like virtual currency," Hobbs wrote in a letter with the veto of Senate Bill 1025.

Yes, but: Hobbs did sign House Bill 2749 into law last night, which doesn't permit the investment of public funds, but rather creates a reserve to hold cryptocurrencies found to be abandoned unclaimed property in the state.

• The reserve which will be administered by the state treasurer.
• The bill that was vetoed would have allowed up to 10% of public funds in the state to be invested in digital assets.

New Hampshire's new law is more conservative. The state's Republican governor, Kelly Ayotte, shared her Tuesday signing of House Bill 302 on X.

• Though it doesn't require any investment, it permits state officials to buy cryptocurrency on behalf of state funds, with a limit of 5% of public funds.
• If other cryptocurrencies besides bitcoin have high enough market caps (more than $500 billion), they will also be allowed.
• The bill had nine sponsors, all Republican, and cleared the second chamber on Tuesday.

Zoom out: Speaking of state retirement systems, two such systems have made purchases of bitcoin ETFs: those in Wisconsin and Michigan.

What they're saying: "For many years, we've laid the groundwork in our legislature for New Hampshire to be Bitcoin-, crypto-, and blockchain-friendly," Rep. Keith Ammon (R.-N.H.), a sponsor of his state's legislation, tells Axios.

• Another important difference in New Hampshire's legislation, he explains, is that it allows the state to buy precious metals. This got other supporters on board.
• "The common theme is sound money that can't be debased," he says.

Zoom out: We would still very much like to know how much bitcoin federal agencies hold.

• Those reports, required in Trump's strategic reserve executive order, must have been turned in to Treasury, but nothing has been said about them.

The OCC put out an interpretative letter yesterday further clarifying that banks under its supervision can hold cryptocurrency for their customers.

Why it matters: Custody of digital assets at banks was a hot topic last year.

Catch up quick: The OCC's statement on Wednesday builds on a broader letter from early March that rolled back previous guidance requiring national banks to get a green light from the agency before doing anything with digital assets.

• This follows other directives in recent months from other the regulators, the Fed and the FDIC, rescinding similar restrictive guidance to banks.

The intrigue: One of the blockchain industry's champions in Congress, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R.-Wyo.), recently raised doubts that the Fed's policy, in particular, has actually changed.

• The senator specifically pointed to a February 2023 policy statement from the central bank that remains standing today.

Zoom in: That Fed policy statement states that it's unsafe and unsound for banks to hold cryptocurrency.

• The Bank Policy Institute trade association drew attention to that surviving policy, among others, and has called for its revision in a letter sent last week to the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets.
• The Blockchain Association has also raised the policy with the new administration.

Between the lines: The policy itself, however, doesn't take on digital assets specifically. Instead, the revision the document makes to its rules reiterates that state-chartered banks (which the Fed oversees) need to follow rules for national banks (which the OCC oversees) as well as their respective state laws.

• In other words: State-chartered banks are held to the OCC's standards.

💭 Our thought bubble: A reasonable read is that, because the policies the Fed based its prior analysis on have been stuck down, that analysis also no longer holds.

What we're watching: Whether or not the Fed issues a new version of this policy statement.

The site we all look to when we want to predict the future of crypto prices, Deribit, is now owned by Coinbase, the largest exchange in the U.S., per the Wall Street Journal.

By the numbers: Coinbase will pay $2.9 billion to close the deal.

• Coinbase says Deribit did $1 trillion in volume last year.

💭 Our thought bubble: It's a power move for Coinbase, which is unlikely to become the biggest exchange in the world any time soon.

• But now it owns the biggest exchange for options.

🌏 Most Official Trump buyers seem to be coming from outside of the U.S. (Bloomberg)

🤨 Of the 2 million wallets that have bought the Trump meme coin, about 764,000 holders, mostly small ones, have lost money. (NBC News)

🇯🇵 Tether has a new access point to Japan, via its mega messaging app, LINE. (Tether)