If you enjoy working on ranches or with horses or… with cryptocurrency, Wyoming is probably the place to check out.
The Newest Tech Hub?
At one point, the state of Wyoming held such strict anti-crypto laws that residents couldn’t even hold or open a Coinbase account. However, the region has recently adopted as many as 13 individual, hardcore blockchain laws that have made it something of a haven for distributed ledger and digital asset ventures throughout the U.S.
The reason for this is because Wyoming, as well as neighboring regions such as Montana and Colorado, have been privy to areas like New York and the “hazardous” environments they present for cryptocurrency innovation. New York paved the way for the BitLicense in 2015. The requirements of the BitLicense include registration and heavy fees that many crypto companies claim stifle innovation and prevent blockchain from excelling the way it should. As a result, many companies centered on digital currencies have either avoided New York altogether or stepped as far away as possible.
States like Wyoming have seen this as a potential business opportunity. For all the customers looking to avoid New York, the region provides them enough “open space” and low-enough taxes to come and establish their crypto businesses without issue. As the country’s least populous state, many are seeing the area as a goldmine; a place to start from scratch and create something big in the coming years.
State representative Tyler Lindholm comments:
It’s been good for Wyoming that the federal government has been proving its stripes of incompetency.
Interestingly, Lindholm is one of the people that has helped most in Wyoming’s transformation. A longtime fan of crypto, he has consistently worked to change the state’s attitude towards digital assets to make it more open to such innovation. Unfortunately, he recalls a time in the beginning when most of his law-making associates saw crypto as a direct pathway to scams and other malicious activity.
He states:
This was their first blush with crypto, even hearing about it. I got my a*s whipped pretty bad.
Ultimately, what convinced other legislators was that crypto was a way to earn money and release the state from the dying rule of the coal industry, which had largely been demolished during the Obama administration. Now, Stephen McKeon – an economics professor at the University of Oregon – says that more and more LLCs or limited liability companies with the words “crypto” or “blockchain” in their names are calling Wyoming home.
Wyoming Is Growing… Fast
He comments:
I’ve been around startups a long time and I don’t ever remember interacting with a tech startup that was based in Wyoming, but in the last two years, just in crypto, I’ve seen in multiple times.
