Bitcoin-Backed Loans in North Carolina (2026)

Laws on the books

• Effective Jan 2027HB 920 / SL 2026-45

  Virtual Currency Kiosk Consumer Protection Act

  Gov. Josh Stein signed the kiosk act into law on July 8, 2026 as Session Law 2026-45, effective January 1, 2027. It is one of the toughest in the nation: kiosk operators are statutorily deemed money transmitters requiring licensure, the first NC statute to hard-code a crypto business model into money-transmission law; daily limits are $2,000 for new customers and $5,000 for existing ones; aggregate fees are capped at 12%, the tightest cap of any large state; and new customers defrauded within 30 days get their full principal refunded. Operators must also run a 10-second interactive fraud-warning screen and staff live customer service.

  Signing it, Stein noted North Carolinians have lost over $12 million to kiosk fraud. The kiosk industry has publicly called the 12% cap a quasi-ban and is lobbying for amendments before the effective date, so watch the 2027 session.

• In effect 2025HB 506 / SL 2025-6

  Investment Modernization Act

  This replaced the sole-fiduciary Treasurer model with a five-member North Carolina Investment Authority governing the roughly $130 billion pension. It is the body that would execute any future digital-asset allocation, and a priority of pro-crypto Treasurer Brad Briner.

• In effect 2024SL 2024-48

  CBDC ban

  Since 2024, NC agencies and courts cannot accept central bank digital currency payments, and the state is barred from participating in Federal Reserve CBDC testing.

On the horizon

Two bitcoin-investment bills sit one vote from the governor's desk, and neither has moved in over a year.

• Stalled since May 2025HB 92

  Digital Assets Investment Act

  Passed the House 71 to 44 on April 30, 2025, after the allocation was cut from 10% to 5% of certain state funds and restricted to digital assets with a $750 billion or greater market cap, which effectively means bitcoin only, via ETPs. It has been parked in Senate Rules since May 2025. It was never vetoed and never reached the Senate floor.

• Stalled since Mar 2025SB 327

  Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act

  Up to 10% of public funds in BTC with a cold-storage mandate and a state mining study. In Senate Rules since March 2025. If either bill moves in 2027, North Carolina would join the small club of states with statutory bitcoin exposure.

Tax

The flat-tax glide path is the headline North Carolina already owns. The crypto-relevant footnote is that NC has no crypto-specific tax statutes at all, it simply follows federal treatment. So a bitcoin-backed loan produces no NC taxable income, while a sale is taxed at the flat rate. With the rate scheduled to step down toward 2.99% over the next few years, every year of deferral by borrowing is worth real basis points, and the bitcoin loan calculator shows what that deferral costs to hold.

Lending & borrowing

North Carolina's Money Transmitters Act is unusually explicit that maintaining control of virtual currency on behalf of others is money transmission, meaning custodial bitcoin-loan platforms plausibly need an NC money-transmitter license ($250,000 minimum net worth, up to a $250,000 bond), while collaborative-custody and multisig models have a cleaner argument for sitting outside it. The Commissioner of Banks publishes virtual-currency FAQs and runs a digital-platform transaction-reporting regime for licensees, one of the more sophisticated state monitoring setups. From 2027 the kiosk act adds a second, harder perimeter. None of this has kept lenders out: All seven lenders we track serve North Carolina.

Providers & industry

The NC pension already has crypto exposure the old-fashioned way: roughly $51 million in Strategy (MSTR) stock as of late 2025, plus positions in Coinbase and Robinhood, holdings that predate HB 92 and drew headlines in February 2026 when the MSTR position fell by about two thirds. Treasurer Briner's response was that crypto is under 1% of the $142 billion fund, which remains well above its growth target.

Add Charlotte, the number two US banking center, and an active fintech policy scene, and North Carolina is quietly one of the most consequential states for where institutional bitcoin adoption goes next.