Senate Bill 1296 Summary

• Establishes the Distributed Ledger Technology Act in Idaho Code Chapter 54, declaring legislative intent to protect the right of individuals and businesses to use distributed ledger technology and create legal certainty for the industry.

• Prohibits cities and counties from enacting ordinances that impose stricter requirements on distributed ledger technology verification businesses than data centers, prevent such operations in industrial zones, restrict home operations, or discriminate against the technology through zoning changes.

• Prohibits local governments from enacting ordinances that restrict individuals' ability to use cryptocurrency wallets for self-custody of private or public keys or to use distributed ledger technology tokens for purchasing legal goods and services.

• Prohibits distributed ledger technology tokens used as payment from being subject to additional taxes, withholdings, assessments, or charges based solely on their use as payment method, while preserving other authorized Idaho taxes under Title 63.

• Prohibits local governments from enacting ordinances that prohibit, restrict, or impair individuals' ability to run distributed ledger technology nodes, and clarifies that home or business distributed ledger technology verification is not subject to money transmitter regulations.