---
title: 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session
tags: Law, Semi-Private
description: Details & Strategy for Wyoming Advocacy
robots: noindex, nofollow
---
# 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session

## Session Kickoff

Usually the first meeting in May or June sets the agenda legislation to be enacted in early 2023 session.

> 6/14/2022 - 6/15/2022
> 8:30 AM
> Sheridan College Whitney Center for the Arts, Room W235, 1 Whitney Way, Sheridan, Wyoming
> Livestream available on the Legislature's website at www.wyoleg.gov
> Agenda: TBD (to be posted at https://www.wyoleg.gov/Committees/2022/S19 )

## June 14th 3:15

**3:15 Agenda - Digital Assets**
* Consideration of Digital Asset Definitions
* Intellectual Property and Digital Assets
* Non-Fungible Tokens
* Break (3:00-3:15 p.m.)
* Public Comment
* Committee Directives

I'm not sure if we need to testify here, but Chris Rothfuss spoke about some
thoughts on leveraging our digital identity and SoS corporate records filing efforts to register intellectual property under WY state-based trademark law, and maybe synergy with eResidency to have digital assets covered under Wyoming law.

UCC "perfection of a security interest" lien cleansing

UCC issues - have to be careful because of UCC. reconcile tangible vs. real property, sometimes digital should be considered real property(sic?)

Intellectual Property, NFT concepts, real property concepts, want to make sure are statutorily regognized (including potential taxation for property taxes when tokenized real estate). Vehicle registration and transaction and sales tax, same issue for tokenized titles. Equivalence of these under law is not well developed.

Any required filings UCC filings SoS should be.

Ability digital asset under Wyoming.

Wyoming Registered Digital Asset (time stamps)

Trademarks, patents (PTO has diminished authority, but still valid), trade secrets, other IP. Standing in our courts and access to chancery court.

State Chartered Bank might be able to offer these eResidency (or Credit Union have special laws under US)

## June 15th

### 8:45a Agenda - Blockchain Business in Wyoming
• Legislative Service Office
• Wyoming Secretary of State's Office
• Cryptomining Updates
• Public Comment
• Committee Directives

This is where the Wyoming Secretary of State may be presenting their progress, or lack of, for 2010 HB70
https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2019/HB0070, and subsequent funding updates.

I testified about the importance of this bill in 2019, and presented in September of 2019 a working demo using W3C standards (DIDs & VCs), and in 2020 a hackathon demonstrated API access, but as far as I know nothing is available. I also worry they will do minimal.

Not sure if we should "complain" here, or save it for eResidency. We should ask Chris Rothfuss for advice.

The original bill:

> Not later than December 31, 2021, the secretary of state may develop and implement an industry leading filing system through which all required filings, as defined in paragraph (c)(iii) of this section, may be submitted. The secretary of state shall endeavor to use blockchain technology and include an application programming interface as components of the filing system, as well as robust security measures and other components determined by the secretary of state to be best practices or which are likely to increase the effective and efficient administration of the laws of this state. The secretary of state may create a blockchain for the purposes of this section or contract for the use of a privately created blockchain.
>
>(b) The secretary of state may:
>
> (i) Consult with all interested parties before developing the filing system specified by subsection (a) of this section, including businesses, registered agents, attorneys, law enforcement and other interested persons;
>
> (ii) If possible, partner with technology innovators and private companies to develop necessary components of the system.

They have not partners that I know of in a public way. I also believe they should follow the prinicples of US Homeland security be extremely careful of vendor lock-in, uses standards, as per https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2021Jul/0074.html

In 2019 I presented a demo showing the opportunity to use decentralized identity blockchain technologies for the registration of corporations, which countries like Estonia have been doing for several years. I demonstrated how a Wyoming resident could apply to become a registered agent, and upon approval apply to create a Wyoming corporation by submitting electronic documents to the Wyoming Secretary of State. This demo used approaches and international standards to avoid vendor lock-in. The demo was in support of moving the year-old HB0017-2019 "Commercial Filing System" from "study" to "implement". I have not heard since if there is any progress by the Wyoming Secretary of State on this topic, and I encourage the Commission to urge completion of the study and to fund any implementation.

Wyoming has to be competent in digital signatures (including no-vendor lockin, using standards, and future proofing for multisignature and collaborative custody.)

WYDOT is doing driver's licenses, but those tech choices are not optimal for agility for other uses.

### 10:30am Agenda - Digital Identity
* Data Privacy
* E-Residency
* Bill Draft: Private Cryptographic Keys
* Public Comment
* Committee Directives

ASAP: Get invites for: [e-mail], [e-mail]

to: LSO - Clarissa Nord <[e-mail]>
cc: LSO - David Hopkinson <[e-mail]>,
LSO - Emily Wangen <[e-mail]>

#### 1. Data Privacy
This is where the bulk of our testimony is likely to be this year. I'm not sure if there should be one letter on all three topics, or three seperate letters.

On data privacy, there was some excellent work on genetic privacy last year that we could learn from. I'm not sure what else is up, though I want to make sure that harms are not only property loss, but also violations of authority, connecting to 4th amendment "secure in paper", etc.

#### 3. Privacy Key Law

special protection for private keys. Reintroduce the 2020 Wyoming draft without broken amendment. Part of what caused this law to fail last time was law & order primacy of the court, in particular to financial assets. Possibly instead link to security of identity and loss of authority, false witness, etc.

##### 4. e-residency

* (see my [presentation from last year](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JNmCMVEdMpAHoqVZ7UBakr2PtHgQI4hIgSpRD07nkkU/edit#slide=id.ged93563bd4_0_65))
* be clear that this isn't residency, but instead faciliates corporate domicile under Wyoming law
* First step is to complete implementation of previously pass laws [2019-HB070](https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2019/HB0070) & [2019-HB105](https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2019/HB0185)
* But not minimally
* Consider regulation or law to enable a "digital registered agent" ("DRA?")that is similar to "commercial registered agent" but with additional capabilities and responsibilities.
* That they can present digital proofs to SoS on behalf of companies they register.
* For instance right to exchange cryptocurrency to fiat in order to payments on behalf of companies they represent.
* SoS needs to be able to verify true Wyoning residency of DRAs.
* could be a predessor to ability to offer other wyoming residents proof-of-residency
* SoS be able accept applications for new corporate digital identity ("CDID"), requiring verifiable credential from a registered DRA.
* SoS can issues verifiable credential proofs to certify date of inception and current status.
* SoS may be able to issue other useful proofs.
* licensing? (TBD: What else does SoS do?)
* Time stamp services for digital business records
* Investigate Estonian model of having digital registered agents do more of the work.
* Incentivize other wyoming services (banking, merchant services, accounting, etc) to be available to wyoming corps.
* Clarity that proofs of possession of digital assets held by registered corporations is under Wyoming's law not other interpretations of UCC.
* Ability for individuals to register digital assets under wyoming law.

Corporate Registered Agent (CRA): https://sos.wyo.gov/Business/CRAHome.aspx
Digital Registered Agent (DRA)
- banks, credit unions, other parties offer, but not
- can do KYC of corporate representives
- authorized to send verifiable credential to SoC.
- SoS set requirements that DRA
#### Other

* Give new Wyoming digital identity law some clarity and teeth
* Key is more than just property law, as there are responsiblities and "due care" entities must support if they accept delegation of digital identity.
* Draw from
* Texas identity draft
* leverage approaches in last years Genetic Privacy Law that passed but for identity
* look into other agency law & fiduciary law connections
* Also right of publicity laws & identity theft laws
* and "unreasonable search and seizure of effects" under constitution. "Good fences make good neighbors".

I'd also like to connect these duties to digital identity:

* Specificity. An Agent will use Principal Authority to serve specific tasks as instructed by the Principal, or as required by Custom, and do nothing more with an identity.
* Responsibility. An agent will serve those tasks with reasonable care and skill, with due diligence, and without further delegation.
* Representation. An agent will act in the best interests of the Principal, without secret profit, and will not take on other responsibilities that might conflict with that.
* Fidelity. An agent will serve those tasks in good faith.
* Disclosure. An agent will maintain accounts and report their actions back to the Principal.

columns, rows: who, obligations, direct vs delegator & delegatee (burdens go up)

intent to monetize, transfer, delegate, or aggregate/leverage? (lots of claws!)

Power imbalance

Which digital assets/identity are we are going to allow treat as property, which semi-allow (lease/delegatable?, but can revoke)

rights associated with your digital identity.

Your digital identity has all the rights of your personal identity / your self.

recognize that there are entities that are not covered under CCPA, and why is that justified?

## 1:30pm Bill Draft: Public Benefit Corporations
• Legislative Service Office
• Discussion
• Public Comment
• Committee Directives

I'm not sure if we should testify here, but in the DAO testimony we would like these to be available in DAO form.

In particular, I have some familiarity with this area. Blockchain Commons considers itself a "benefit llc" which many legal opinions does not require a seperate seperate legal form, but I suspect this is about allowing C-corp based benefit corporations.

That being said, I have some criticism of the "certified B-corp" optimized forms of these from when I was a professor at a green-MBA program. If they put stronger restrictions on the C-Corp benefit form, I don't want those restrictions to fall into LLCs that call themselves benefit corps.

We also might want to mention that Blockchain Commons is considering reorganization under the Wyoming Low Profit LLC (L3C) Act, and wonder if there is relevance to have a low-profit C-corp.

It is also likely we should say nothing here.

## Other?

#### DAO

* The proposed Lummis-Gillibrand legislation before the US Senate defines DAOs as business entities that include "LLC, corporation, partnership, foundation, cooperative or similar organization". Current Wyoming law only recognizizes LLC based DAOs, it should support more.

* In particular, my own organization would reorganize to create a DAO under the Wyoming Low Profit LLC (L3C) act or Wyoming Uniform Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act. Others want public benefit status, other need serial. But many of these are blended.

* Harmonize with serial LLCs.
* The SoS should get clarity as to which serial LLCs are active. I have one registered that is authorized for 50, but only 5 are active.
* Including update to serial LLC law to allow for name updates!
* Make sure is possible that member-managed DAOs can leverage cryptographic quorum voting with keys that trigger smart-contracts rather than purely algorithmic management. This is closely associated with David Pope's thoughts on an LLC that is represented by an NFT.
* This may require some enabling legislation for corporate digital signatures, voting, and digital records.
* I have offered some advice to the Secretary about Public Identifiers. Ideally the format for these can be accomplish the W3C leveraging the DID standard for DID Methods. I recommend that you encourage a new method spec to be written by the DAO community.