President Donald Trump’s American bitcoin The reserve does not yet exist and there is no mechanism in the federal government for the wholesale purchase of cryptocurrencies.
Keep this in mind as you consider this weekend’s speculation about the price that would cause the White House to hit the buy button, thanks in large part to CNBC speculator Jim Cramer. There is no such button.
The president ordered a “strategic reserve” to be established to contain bitcoins, but that did not cause it to emerge. The Treasury Department and crypto advisors spent months auditing federal crypto holdings (although White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt told CoinDesk last week that they won’t share a number just yet). But the process had a snag: Advocates said they still need Congress to establish the setback under the law.
The new US crypto sector law for stablecoin issuers did not include it, nor did the extensive crypto market structure bill currently moving through the US Senate. Passing legislation through this Congress (even less controversial matters) is a difficult task, and industry lobbyists are currently focused on the bill to finally establish market regulations and supervision for digital assets. A reserve may not even be second on the priority list, because cryptocurrency tax rules also attract it.
When Cramer suggested on air that Trump has a plan, saying, “I hear at 60 he’s going to fill the bitcoin reserve,” cryptocurrency markets took notice. The distressed asset has recently fallen as low as $62,840, but spent a few days hovering around $70,000, and if the US government was willing to take the plunge at $60,000, that could be a big problem. But the rumor is not supported by what is happening with the federal fund.
For now, Trump’s executive order from last year to establish the bitcoin reserve and a separate reserve of other crypto assets awaits fulfillment. And his order carefully rejected the idea of the government purchasing cryptocurrencies with taxpayer money (which disappointed the industry at the time). Instead, he ordered his administration to stop selling seized assets, so anything seized in civil or criminal cases is now supposedly set aside for future booking.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the weekend speculation. The government’s current bitcoin holding may be around $23 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence data on wallets associated with the United States.
Trump advisers and lawmakers like Sen. Cynthia Lummis have floated some ideas about how the feds could buy bitcoin without turning to taxpayers, but no solution has yet been chosen. And Lummis’ legislative efforts to enact the reservation have not moved forward, even as his Senate tenure wanes following his announcement that he will retire after this year.
During congressional hearings last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked if the government was in a position to bail out bitcoin, and Bessent said he had no such authority. More specifically, however, he said he cannot order American bankers to start buying cryptocurrencies.
For government purchases, the industry might be better off looking to the states right now. Several state governments turned to bitcoin reserve authorities last year and have been more agile than the federal government in allocating part of their budgets to digital assets.
Read more: Why does the United States still not have a Bitcoin reserve?
