South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed S. 163 into legislation on Could 19, 2026, amending the state’s code of legal guidelines to ascertain a complete framework for cryptocurrency customers and companies.
The invoice handed the Senate 38–1 and cleared the Home 110–1 earlier than being ratified on Could 14.
Self-custody and cost rights
Underneath the brand new legislation, people and companies can’t be prohibited from accepting digital property as cost for items and companies, or from utilizing self-hosted wallets or {hardware} wallets to keep up self-custody of their holdings.
The laws additionally bars the state and native governments from imposing any extra tax, withholding, or cost on digital asset transactions solely as a result of a digital asset was used because the cost technique, slightly than U.S. authorized tender.
The invoice states:
“Digital property used as a technique of cost might not be topic to any extra tax, withholding, evaluation, or cost by the state or a neighborhood authorities that’s primarily based solely on using the digital asset as the strategy of cost.”
CBDC ban
A central provision of S. 163 prohibits any state company, board, fee, division, or political subdivision from accepting or requiring cost in central financial institution digital foreign money, or from taking part in any Federal Reserve check of such a foreign money.
Mining protections
The legislation additionally provides vital protections for bitcoin miners.
Native governments are barred from inserting restrictions on mining companies in industrially zoned areas that don’t apply to different companies in the identical zone, or from imposing sound limits past the world’s normal noise laws.
Mining operations, node operation, on-chain software program growth, and crypto-to-crypto buying and selling are all explicitly exempt from cash transmitter licensing necessities.
South Carolina joins a rising listing of states enacting crypto-friendly laws, following Kentucky, which handed the same self-custody and mining safety invoice in March 2025.