Two new bills have been introduced in the state of Michigan that seeks to prosecute persons who falsely alter public records on a blockchain.

The Michigan state legislature has introduced two House Bills 6257 and 6258 which focuses on the crimes associated with distributed ledger technology (DLT) and cryptocurrencies respectively, CoinTelegraph reported.

HB 6257 states:

“A person who falsely makes, alters, forges, or counterfeits a public record… with intent to injure or defraud another person is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 14 years.”

HB 6258 amends existing Michigan penal code to include the definitions of cryptocurrency and DLT. The bill defines cryptocurrency as “digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, and that operates independently of a central bank.” In addition, it defines DLT as

“Any distributed ledger protocol and supporting infrastructure, including blockchain, that uses a distributed, decentralized, shared, and replicated ledger, whether use of the ledger is public or private, permissioned or permissionless, and that may include the use of electronic currencies or electronic tokens as a medium of electronic exchange.”

Both bills have been referred to the Committee on Law and Justice.