Texans, start hoarding your doubloons. Gold and silver are now legal tender in the Lone Star State — which is great news for anyone who’s been dying to tip their bartender in Krugerrands.
Yes, while the state is busy dealing with immigration raids, floods, and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ultra-messy divorce, Texas has also declared that what we need is more metal (and not the cool kind that worships Satan when you play the record backwards). Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed House Bill 1056 into law, which allows Texans to make purchases with precious metals, because apparently we’ve decided as a state to cosplay as a 19th-century railroad tycoon (and let’s be honest, even those guys probably had a servant write a check).
The new law, which goes into effect in phases starting next year (presumably after everyone has finished digging through their grandma’s jewelry box), allows Texans to load up debit cards (or apps) with gold and silver stored in the state-run Texas Bullion Depository. Which, yes, is a real thing. Because if Texas can’t secede, it’ll at least build a gold fort and start acting like it already did.
According to Abbott, this is all about honoring the Constitution — the part where we all get to pretend we’re still on the gold standard, just with better Wi-Fi.
“This fulfills the promise of Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution,” Abbott declared on X, presumably while polishing his commemorative Sam Houston musket.
One retailer, Terry Black’s Barbecue, replied tongue-in-cheekily (we think?): “We will accept your gold bars in exchange for brisket.”
The logic behind all this? Inflation, mostly. Kevin Freeman, an economist and author, testified in March that the U.S. dollar has lost “95% of its value in my lifetime.” He noted that money is supposed to be “a unit of account, a means of exchange, and a store of value,” and he claimed the dollar is only good at the first two. Gold, meanwhile, just sits there all shiny and reassuring.
And to “prove” the tech works, lawmakers heard from UK resident (!) Jason Cozens, who founded Glint, a company that already offers gold-backed payment cards (what a fun coincidence!). Cozens has been shopping Glint around for nearly a decade and has recorded himself buying things via the system which … basically seems like using a credit card.
To clarify: This law doesn’t mean you’ll be clinking coins onto the Whataburger counter. Apps like Glint will convert gold into dollars at the point of sale, which kind of defeats the whole point of making gold legal tender — but don’t worry, this is about freedom. Specifically, the freedom to complicate your financial life with commodity speculation (and give money to unnecessary middle men like Cozens).
But not everyone was polishing their ingots. Victoria North, speaking for the Texas Comptroller’s office, flagged some fairly important constitutional concerns — like the fact that the federal government is the only entity allowed to coin money. She even warned in a hearing this could expose state employees to criminal liability.
“The United States has the sole power to coin money. Under the Constitution, and if anyone, individual or state assumes to supplant the medium of exchange adopted by our government, or assumes to compete with the United States government, in this regard, a violation of these statutes would follow,” North testified, per KXAN.
North admitted she’s not a constitutional law specialist — but she did call this the only bill she’s reviewed that raised this kind of red flag. So, gold stars all around.
But why stop at gold and silver? If we’re going back to old-school currency, let’s go all the way. Bring back cattle as payment. Make beaver pelts legal tender. Pay your rent in shells and bear teeth. At least then we’d be honest about what this is: a symbolic, performative gesture designed to impress libertarian YouTubers and that one guy at the farmer’s market who wears a “Ron Paul Was Right” shirt.
The most incredible part? This isn’t even new. Utah started this movement in 2011. Now Arkansas, Florida, and Missouri have joined in, because nothing builds public trust like watching your government invest in a medieval banking system while your city floods and your power grid wheezes like a donkey with a three-pack-a-day habit.
The Texas version is especially ambitious, thanks to its electronic payment system. So no, you won’t be lugging around sacks of coins like you’re on your way to duel Doc Holliday — you’ll just load up your phone with bullion, swipe at H-E-B, and walk away happily knowing that you participated in yet another pointless system favored only by your libertarian buddy from college.
But hey, if your city floods or the grid collapses, at least you can cling to your “store of value” and shout “Constitution!” into the wind.
The full transactional currency system will be online May 1, 2027. So get ready to go back to the future (sorry Marty, you should have paid for that flux capacitor in shiny nuggets). It’s shiny, slow, and possibly unconstitutional. But in Texas, that’s just another Tuesday.