Corporate Stock-Certificate Tokens Bill Proposed By Wyoming Lawmakers

A new bill has been filed in the Wyoming state senate that seeks to allow the issuance of blockchain-based stock certificates.

House Bill 0185, dubbed “corporate stock-certificate tokens,” was introduced by representative Jared Olsen, along with senator Chris Rothfuss and six other representatives. The bill is proposing to amend an existing law to allow the use of tokenized digital share certificates, which are typically issued in paper form.

According to the bill, share certificate, share, stock, share of stock or words of similar import shall be construed to include a certificate token, which means a representation of shares that is stored in an electronic format that contains the information entered into a blockchain or other secure, auditable database. If passed, House Bill 0185 will take effect on July 1, 2019.

“The articles of incorporation or bylaws of a corporation may specify that all or a portion of the shares of the corporation may be represented by share certificates in the form of certificate tokens,” the bill said. “The electronic message, command or transaction that transmits the certificate tokens to the data address to which a certificate token was issued shall be authorized at the time of issuance by one (1) or more messages, commands or transactions signed with the network signatures of two (2) officers designated in the bylaws or by the board of directors of the corporation. ”

The new bill came after Caitlin Long, president of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, announced that Wyoming’s legislature passed two new crypto and blockchain-related bills. These include the Wyoming Utility Token Act-property amendments bill, which moves utility token out of securities chapter into its own chapter of state law, creating a brand new class of property (digital assets), and the Financial Technology Sandbox Act, which creates a legal sandbox for the testing of blockchain products and services in the state.