The Texas Blockchain Council: The Lobby That Outgrew Its Name

What is the Texas Blockchain Council, and who founded it?

A business league - the same tax status as a chamber of commerce, as its founder puts it - organized in 2019 by Lee Bratcher, a political-science professor at Dallas Baptist University and an Army Reserve officer whose doctoral work was on blockchain land registries. It launched publicly on November 9, 2020 with three goals, a legislative caucus, a state work group, and a Uniform Commercial Code update, and a line for the press: “Silicon Valley has lost its competitive edge, and Texas is positioning itself to lead in emerging technology.”^[1][6] The IRS recognized it in February 2021 from Richardson; it had about twenty member companies in 2020, more than fifty in 2021, “over 100” by late 2022, and 120 in 2026.^{[2][5][11][53]} Bratcher is on his own page; so is the man who succeeded him, Giovanni Capriglione.

Its claim on the record is that it wrote it. The council's witnesses appear on the 2021 lists for HB 1576, which created the Work Group on Blockchain Matters, and HB 4474, which put virtual currency into the Texas UCC; when both were signed that June the council announced it had “spearheaded” them, and its board chair called them “the opening salvo letting the world know that Texas is open for blockchain business.”^[7][8][3] The Governor received it at the mansion that year; the Lieutenant Governor put its director Christopher Calicott on the Work Group in October.^[10][9] The statutes are on the law timeline and on the pages of the legislators who carried them, Tan Parker and Angela Paxton, whom the council named Legislator of the Year in 2022.^[13]

What did it do about SB 1751, and what actually happened in the Senate?

It ran a campaign, and it lost the floor vote it says it fought - by more than the record has shown. Senator Kolkhorst's 2023 bill would have capped miners at 10% of ERCOT's demand-response programs and ended their abatements. At the March 28 hearing the council's two witnesses testified “on” the bill, the Legislature's word for neither for nor against; Riot and US Bitcoin testified against it, and the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and residents of Navarro County for.^[14] The committee sent it out 11–0 on April 4, and the council told Texans to “vote against this anti-free market bill.”^[20][15] On April 10 it launched “Don't Mess With Texas Innovation” with the Digital Chamber and the Satoshi Action Fund; Bratcher told CBS Austin the senator “is just being fed bad information on this particular issue.”^[16][17] On April 12 the three groups wrote to the Lieutenant Governor calling the bill “anti-free market and anti-bitcoin mining.”^[18]

That morning the Senate passed it. The Senate Journal for April 12, 2023 records CSSB 1751 on the local and uncontested calendar, “(viva voce vote) (31-0) (31-0)” - every senator, including the one who was excused from the regular session later that day.^[19][20] CoinDesk reported the vote as 30–1, corrected it the next day - “An earlier version of the story said that the bill passed with one vote against it” - and the wrong number outlived the correction; Cointelegraph's headline still carries it, and so did this site, on a dozen pages, until September 30, 2026.^[21] The correction matters for what it says about the campaign: not one senator was moved. The bill died where the council said it would, in House State Affairs, referred April 24 and never heard; “a victory for the great state of Texas,” Bratcher said, while a Navarro County activist gave the House's reason as “The house just didn't prioritize it.”^[22][23] The same session passed the flared-gas exemption and the proof-of-reserves bill the council testified for, and two years later SB 6 put the state's own brake on large loads into statute, with the council testifying “on” it.^[24][36]The senator is on Lois Kolkhorst and Bitcoin.

Whom has it sued?

The federal government, twice, and won both times without a ruling on the merits. On February 22, 2024 the council and Riot Platforms sued the Department of Energy, the Energy Information Administration, and the Office of Management and Budget in Waco over an emergency survey of miners' power use - “a case about sloppy government process, contrived and self-inflicted urgency, and invasive government data collection,” the complaint said; “an alarming precedent,” Bratcher said.^[26][27] Judge Albright granted a restraining order on February 23. The Sierra Club filed for the government on the 28th, calling the data “urgently needed.” On March 1 the government withdrew the survey, agreed to destroy what it had collected, and paid $2,199.45 in fees.^[28][30][29]On December 27, 2024 the council joined the Blockchain Association and the DeFi Education Fund against the IRS's broker rule for decentralized finance in the Northern District; Congress repealed the rule under the Congressional Review Act on April 10, 2025 and the case was dismissed six days later.^[31][27][32] The enforcement side of the state is on the Attorney General page, which records the same two cases from the state's vantage.

What did it do for the reserve?

More than any other body outside the Capitol. On December 12, 2024 it announced Capriglione's HB 1598 with him - a reserve inside the treasury, donation-funded - and Bratcher called it landmark legislation.^[33] That bill never got a hearing.^[58] The one that passed, Senator Schwertner's SB 21, was drafted “in consultation with the Texas Blockchain Council,” the Observer reported, and on February 18, 2025 Bratcher was the lead witness before Senate Business & Commerce with council members filling the room; the committee voted 10–0, the Senate passed it March 6, the House 101–42 on May 21 with Capriglione carrying it, and the Governor signed it June 20 with $10 million appropriated.^{[39][35][37][38]}“Just 0.0004% of the state's budget,” Bratcher said, “but could create an outsized impact.”^[41] The reserve is on its own page; the senator who wrote it on Charles Schwertner and Bitcoin.

Who pays for it, and how much?

Miners, mostly. CoinDesk reported on January 15, 2025 that “more than half of the TBC's funding comes from bitcoin miners,” naming MARA, Riot, Core Scientific, Bitmain, and Cipher as the largest contributors, with Coinbase, Galaxy, law firms, and banks paying dues; the Dallas Morning News describes it as funded by dues and events.^[34][48] The Form 990s put the scale at $859,418 of revenue in 2021, $2.02 million in 2022, $949,488 in 2023 - a year it spent $2.03 million and ended with net assets of minus $412,111 - $2.25 million in 2024, and $2.37 million in 2025. The president's compensation rose from $153,335 to $480,012 over the same years.^[2] The Texas Observer and the American Prospect reported that more than half of the 2023 revenue went to a lobbying firm; the Ethics Commission's registrations show one principal lobbyist, John Clay, every session from 2021 at ranges rising from about $18,000 to about $111,000, with Bratcher registered at zero in 2024 and 2025.^[40][43][42] A political action committee announced around 2021 raised about two thousand dollars.^[57] By the standard of the companies it speaks for - which borrowed more than ten billion dollars in 2026 alone - it is a small organization with a large record.

Who runs it now, and what is it called?

A legislator, and something else. On January 5, 2026 the council announced that Bratcher was stepping down after six years, remaining on the board, and that Representative Giovanni Capriglione - who had carried SB 21 through the House and would hold House District 98 through January 2027 - was president, effective immediately; Jessi Goostree, a former Fidelity digital-assets executive, became executive director, and Carol Haines of Core Scientific chaired the board.^[46][49] The next day Cipher named Bratcher its head of policy and government affairs.^[50]Public Citizen's Texas director responded the same day the appointment was announced: the council “has been an enemy of transparency, going so far as to sue the U.S. Department of Energy to stop the agency from collecting data about the cryptocurrency industry.”^[47] The Dallas Morning News reported the council's assurance that Capriglione “will not be lobbying for at least a couple years to stay onside of Texas law,” and corrected an earlier line to note he is not a registered lobbyist; the Ethics Commission's 2026 list shows Goostree, a new policy director, and, from September 9, a lobbyist registered under a different client name.^[48][44][51]

The name changed on August 18, 2026. The Texas Blockchain Council became the Digital Infrastructure Network: 120 corporate members, an Austin office beside the Dallas headquarters, Galaxy Digital's chief legal officer on the board, a quantum-computing company as the first new member, and a mandate covering AI, data centers, energy, quantum, and fintech “as well as” digital assets. Capriglione: “The opportunity in front of us is bigger than any one technology or sector.” Bratcher, for Cipher: it “honors the organization's roots while embracing a broader mandate.”^[53] The new website tells members, “Same team, same benefits, new name,” and lists Riot, MARA, Cipher, Bitdeer, Core Scientific, Galaxy, and IREN among them.^[54] Six months earlier Cipher Mining had become Cipher Digital; the same year Riot, Core Scientific, and Cipher leased their Texas megawatts to AI tenants.^[50] The lobby renamed itself for what its members had become. The North American Blockchain Summit, November 18 and 19 in Arlington, keeps the word.^[55]

The honest counterweight: the record, the room, and the word

Three things. First, the record, which is the council's strongest argument and this site's: without it there is no UCC definition, no Work Group, no flared-gas exemption, no proof-of-reserves statute, no reserve, and a federal survey with the miners' power data in it. It is the most effective single-state digital-asset lobby in the country by any count of statutes, and it did it on two million dollars a year. Second, the room. Its own witnesses did not oppose SB 1751 in committee, its campaign did not move a single senator, and the bill died because a House chairman did not schedule it - a victory the council claimed and did not, on the record, win. It represents an industry whose interests are not always the public's: the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and a county's residents were on the other side of the witness table in 2023, and the survey it stopped in 2024 was the one the Sierra Club said the public urgently needed.^[14][30] Its president is a legislator whose district it will lobby for two more sessions and whose own reserve bill it could not get heard; its board chair works for one of its five largest funders; its founder speaks for another.^[46][58][34] Third, the word. This site is about Bitcoin; the council was never only, and in its own name never primarily, about Bitcoin - it covers, as its old name said, blockchain, and as its new name says, infrastructure. The state's reserve is a Bitcoin reserve because the council's members wanted one; the council's next agenda, by its own August statement, is AI, data centers, energy, and quantum, and the miners paying for it are landlords now. The reader who wants to know what Bitcoin's lobby in Texas will say in 2027 should note that, as of August 2026, Texas does not have one by that name.

The fair reading is that the council was the necessary condition for most of the Bitcoin law on this site and was never as powerful as the law makes it look - that it won in committee rooms and lost on the one floor vote it contested - and that the interests it now serves, on its own account, have outgrown the word it was founded on.

Where does the council stand today?

As of September 30, 2026: the Digital Infrastructure Network, 120 corporate members, offices in Dallas and Austin, a sitting legislator as president until January, three registered lobbyists, $2.4 million of revenue in its last reported year, a summit in November under the old name, and a 2027 session for which it has published no priorities.^{[53][44][2][55]} The people are on Lee Bratcher and Bitcoin and Giovanni Capriglione and Bitcoin; the members are on the company pages of Riot, MARA, Core Scientific, Cipher, and Bitdeer; the bills are on the 2027 watch. This page is the lobby that outgrew its name, and the record it leaves under the old one.