Californians can now use bitcoin -- or any other alternative currencies -- in official transactions, after Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed a bill to that effect into law, Reuters said.

The new law repeals what some lawmakers called an outdated law that prohibited commerce using anything but U.S. currency, according to Reuters.

Roger Dickinson, the Democratic assemblyman who wrote the bill, told Reuters the bill reflects the popularity of currency, like Bitcoin, in use in the state. Dickinson said the former law possibly made illegal the use of rewards points at places like Starbucks.

"In an era of evolving payment methods, from Amazon Coins to Starbucks Stars, it is impractical to ignore the growing use of cash alternatives," Dickinson said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"This bill makes clarifying changes to current law to ensure that various forms of alternative currency such as digital currency, points, coupons or other objects of monetary value do not violate the law when those methods are used for the purchase of goods and services or the transmission of payments," the comments to the bill said, according to RT.

According to CNN Money, bitcoin is a currency created in 2009 that is not tied to any national currency and involves no banks in transactions. Bitcoins are mostly unregulated and offer an anonymous way to make purchases.

A CoinDesk analysis of LinkedIn accounts two months ago showed that 40 percent of bitcoin professionals are in California, with many residing in the state's startup hub, Silicon Valley. However, "this method of measuring bitcoin jobs is obviously skewed to users of LinkedIn and will exclude places that use non-Latin alphabets, such as China."

The California law was approved just days after Mt. Gox, the failed Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, got the go-ahead to start bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S., as it waits on the approval of a settlement with U.S. customers and the sale of its business, according to Reuters.