- California passed a bill allowing the state to hold unclaimed crypto after 3 years of account inactivity.
- The assets won’t be liquidated but will remain in crypto form, reclaimable by users anytime.
- Experts say the bill protects users and aligns with laws that already apply to traditional assets.
California lawmakers have passed a bill through the State Assembly that stirred up major anxiety among crypto investors. At first glance, it sounds harsh: if you don’t interact with your crypto on an exchange for three years, the state can step in. But here’s the key detail that’s calming some nerves—the assets won’t be sold or liquidated. They’ll just be transferred into state custody for safekeeping, and users can claim them back, still in crypto form.
Assembly Bill 1052 passed unanimously and now heads to the State Senate. The bill adds digital assets to California’s unclaimed property law, which already governs things like dormant bank accounts. It’s designed to keep assets safe, not punish users. As long as you show some “ownership interest”—by logging in or transacting—you’re in the clear.
Policy Advocates and Crypto Lawyers Push Back on Panic
Crypto advocates like Dennis Porter and Eric Peterson from the Satoshi Action Fund, who helped draft the bill, are trying to fight the misinformation. They emphasized that your coins stay coins—they’re not turned into dollars or sold off. If you show up years later, you get your Bitcoin back, not its cash value. That’s a big deal in a world where price swings are everything.
Some Bitcoin purists still feel uneasy, arguing this kind of policy violates decentralization ideals and encourages storing crypto off exchanges. But policy insiders insist the bill is misrepresented. As Peterson put it: “No one touches your keys or your wallet. AB 1052 says: Hold them as they are.”
