Most Influential: Dennis Porter

Even as the White House's push for a federal crypto reserve turned sluggish in 2025, many of the U.S. states were contemplating and pulling the trigger on similar ideas, and much of that work was bolstered by Dennis Porter and the Satoshi Action Fund.

This feature is a part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2025 list.

A few of those efforts are coming to a head in states such as Texas, New Hampshire and Arizona, with several more potentially on the way, going live well before the U.S. government's bitcoin stockpile is much more than a proposal in search of some congressional backing. Porter and his cohorts have provided legislative language to spur state lawmaker efforts all over the country.

His group's work has contributed to the passage of at least 10 state laws, Porter said.

"Everywhere from New Hampshire to the state of California, our model policies have passed into law — where not only did we craft the model, but we showed up, testified, worked with lawmakers, hired lobbyists to help us and got individuals to write letters to lawmakers.," Porter said in an interview with CoinDesk.

The group's "strategic bitcoin reserve" model became the first to pass "anywhere in the world," he said. "We are a consumer and innovation-focused group," he said. "The vast majority of our support comes from individuals, which allows us to care about the outcomes on policy for individuals rather than just the industry"

Porter, who had lived and worked in Portland, Oregon, began spending more time in Washington this year as federal policy work became more urgent, and he recently moved to the capital to advocate for crypto policies there full-time.