Over the last year or so Texas has made huge moves in the Bitcoin and broader tech world with its business-friendly environment, no state income tax, and encouragement of crypto mining. More often than not when a state or city is making waves with crypto is New York state and New York City or Florida and Miami. Texas has more or less flown under the radar and ironically enough I think the government prefers it that way. 

Now I am not sure how much longer the state is going to be able to be overlooked and fly under the radar with the two huge moves that they made today. The first one was a home that was purchased for the first time using an unsecured DeFi mortgage! Not to be outdone though the City of Fort Worth, 5th largest city in the state and 12th in the nation, passed a resolution that will have the city itself mining crypto! 

DeFi Mortgage

I am not sure though how much longer people are going to continue to overlook the state though as the first unsecured DeFi mortgage for a house has occurred in the tech-savvy Capital of Austin. What is so unique about this is that USDC.Homes, a company that works with lenders and brokers for crypto home loans, utilized the lending protocol Teller to complete the purchase of the condo all without having to put up any collateral. 

So how was this done?

The new owner of the condo took out a $500,000 USDC stablecoin mortgage out on the condo which was valued at $680,000. All that the owner had to do was put down a down payment in USDC as their credit score was strong enough to secure the loan. To help keep costs down as well the loan transactions took place on-chain via Polygon to make the transactions not only cheaper but faster as well. 

If this type of system shows to be stable and not something that could cause a housing bubble like that in 2008-2009 then hodlers stand to benefit immensely as they would not have to liquidate their holdings to buy a home. This would clear up the current issue at hand when hodlers finally want to purchase a home but they have to pay capital gains taxes on the very crypto they sold. 

I see this as a fantastic way to merge or mix the two current financial systems. Crypto does not have a system like a credit score. So by utilizing what is already there crypto is doing what it was always meant to do, to improve the financial system and make it more fair. It allows the lenders to know that the person they are dealing with does have the type of history one would want when issuing a large unsecured loan like this. The biggest thing that it does though is it does not force you to sell your crypto and thus it does not trigger crypto taxes! 

Fort Worth

The Texas Blockchain Council had previously donated three ASIC Bitmain AntMiner S9 rigs to the city and today the city council approved the city mining Bitcoin! This resolution was passed unanimously and makes Fort Worth the first U.S. city to mine its own Bitcoin! According to the city's estimates, each of the mining rigs will consume about as much energy as a household vacuum cleaner, and stated that the amount of Bitcoin they mine will offset the costs to operate them. 

Something that caught my attention though was where these miners were going to be placed... The city has decided to place them in Fort Worth City Hall! Now they will be running on a private network and in a climate-controlled room but how cool is it to see the city place them in City Hall itself! Combined the three rigs will provide a maximum of 40.5 terahash per second and with the Bitcoin earned the company NYDIG will manage the custody of the city's Bitcoin. 

This is such an interesting and unique thing that I did not anticipate coming at all. If you were going to give me a Texas city that would be the first Fort Worth would not be one I would have guessed! With cities racing each other for blockchain and crypto talent it will be interesting to see if NYC or Miami starts doing the same thing. For now though Fort Worth has the leg up with a city itself mining for Bitcoin!

Please know I am not a financial advisor I am just someone who picked up on a trend and wanted to express it! Makes sure you always do your own research and never invest money you cannot afford to lose! If you enjoyed this article and would like to further support me below are a couple of referral links that if you used when signing up I would appreciate it! Also, follow me on Twitter @Cje95_

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