On Monday, Ohio senator Niraj Antani introduced a new bill allowing tax payers in the Buckeye state to use cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to pay for state and local taxes.

“Cryptocurrency is not just the future, but it’s the present of our 21st-century economy. We must encourage innovation and free enterprise in Ohio,” Antani said.

However, critics highlight that the bill may enable the government to link wallet addresses to taxpayer identities, potentially raising privacy concerns for crypto investors.

Ohio previously explored the option of using crypto for tax payments in November 2018. At the time, the decision to approve the crypto tax payment option was left to the Ohio State Board of Deposits, which did not pursue the bill. “The State Board of Deposits should have acted, and since they haven’t, we will,” Antani said.

The timeline for the bill is not yet clear, but it is currently awaiting committee assignment and review, and will require the full vote of Ohio’s bicameral legislature before proceeding to the governor’s desk for a signature. If the bill does not pass by the end of the Ohio legislature’s two-year session in December, it will presumably die.

Ohio is not the only state to weigh the option of offering crypto as a tax payment method. In 2022, Colorado began accepting crypto for tax payments, though citizens cannot receive tax refunds in digital assets. That same year, Florida governor Rick DeSantis said he favored giving businesses in the Sunshine state the option to pay their taxes in bitcoin, but the proposal has not been implemented yet. At the local level, some jurisdictions around America have also embraced virtual currency payments for taxes, with Orlando, Florida allowing residents to pay taxes in crypto since 2018.