As most banks and credit unions continue to shun California's marijuana industry, state lawmakers are looking at a new way to help cash-saddled cannabis businesses pay their taxes: cryptocurrency.

Legislators this week introduced a bill that would require the state starting in 2020 to accept stablecoins, or digital currency tied in this case to the U.S. dollar, from cannabis-related businesses seeking to pay their excise or cultivation taxes. Assembly Bill 953 would also allow, but not require, counties and cities to do the same for local fees.

The proposal is the latest attempt by the state to find an alternative to the huge sums of cash that arrive at state offices when taxes are due. California Treasurer Fiona Ma recently testified before a congressional subcommittee that, as a member of the state's tax-collecting board of equalization, “duffel bags and sometimes suitcases of cash would arrive quarterly at some of our designated offices.”