New Hampshire council gives $100M Bitcoin bonds the cold shoulder 🧊

New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council voted 3-2 on Wednesday against a Business Finance Authority proposal to issue up to $100 million in taxable revenue bonds tied to Bitcoin ($BTC) acquisition. Councilors Karen Liot Hill, Dave Wheeler and Janet Stevens rejected the measure, while Joseph Kenney and John Stephen voted in favor. The agenda item, heard by the council under RSA 162-I, would have financed Bitcoin purchases and bond issuance expenses through NH CleanSpark Borrower Trust 2026-1, a New Hampshire investment trust.

The bonds had previously advanced through the BFA, which approved them in November 2025, and had the public backing of Governor Kelly Ayotte, who said after that approval, “This is an innovative way to bring more investment opportunities to our state and position us as a leader in digital finance without risking state funds or taxpayer dollars.” The structure was designed as a taxable revenue bond rather than a general obligation bond, meaning repayment would be tied to the borrowing entity rather than to taxpayer funding.

In March, Moody’s assigned the proposed issuance a provisional Ba2 rating, placing it within the agency’s speculative grade category and signaling substantial credit risk. David Krause, an emeritus associate professor of finance at Marquette University, authored an April analysis of the proposal and wrote that while CleanSpark was putting up BTC as collateral, the instrument offered “no recourse to state funds or taxpayers.” Krause added that the bond “may serve as a proof of concept for integrating digital assets into structured finance,” but that “it is not well suited as a general-purpose public finance tool,” noting that “its primary significance lies in highlighting the challenges of adapting traditional financial frameworks to highly volatile digital assets.”

The vote drew a sharp response from state representative Keith Ammon, who wrote on X on Thursday, “It was an extremely short-sighted decision. I can't believe I witnessed it in person. They should gather all relevant facts and information and reconsider their vote at a future meeting.” The council’s agenda did not specify whether the proposal could return for reconsideration at a later meeting, and the hearing began at 10:00 a.m. as part of the Governor and Executive Council’s regular session.

The bonds would have represented another capital-market structure for corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies, following equity offerings, convertible debt and preferred securities used by other firms. New Hampshire in May 2025 became the first U.S. state to approve a law establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, allowing the government to invest 5% of public funds in digital assets with a market capitalization exceeding $500 billion. A similar Bitcoin-backed bond proposal, El Salvador’s $1 billion “Volcano Bonds,” was announced in 2022 to fund a proposed Bitcoin City but never reached issuance following a crypto market downturn.