President Donald Trump’s US Bitcoin reserve does not exist yet and there is no mechanism in the federal government for the wholesale purchase of crypto.
Keep that in mind as you consider this weekend’s speculation about the price point that would prompt the White House to hit a buy button, thanks in large part to CNBC speculator Jim Cramer. There is no such button.
The president ordered a “strategic reserve” created to hold bitcoin, but that didn’t make it exist. The Treasury Department and crypto advisers spent months auditing federal holdings of crypto (although White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt told CoinDesk last week they still won’t share a number). But the process hit a snag: Proponents said they still need Congress to establish the repository under the law.
The crypto sector’s new US law for stablecoin issuers did not include it, and neither does the comprehensive Crypto Market Structure Act currently making its way through the US Senate. Clearing legislation through this Congress — even less controversial issues — is a tall order, and industry lobbyists are currently focused on the bill to finally establish market and oversight rules for digital assets. A reserve might not even be second on the priority list because crypto tax rules also beckon.
When Cramer suggested on air that Trump has a plan, saying, “I heard he was 60 years old, that he wanted to fill the bitcoin reserve,” crypto markets took some notice. The struggling asset recently dipped as low as $62,840, but spent a few days hovering just below $70,000, and if the US government was poised to step in at $60,000, that could be a big deal. But the rumor is not supported by what is going on with the federal fund.
For now, Trump’s executive order last year to create the bitcoin reserve and a separate repository of other crypto assets is waiting to be fulfilled. And his order carefully rejected the idea of the government buying crypto 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 reportedly being earmarked for the future reserve.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the weekend speculation. The government’s current bitcoin holdings may hover around $23 billion, according to data from Arkham Intelligence on US-associated wallets.
Some ideas have been floated by Trump advisers and by lawmakers like Sen. Cynthia Lummis for how the U.S. government could buy bitcoin without tapping taxpayers, but no solutions have yet been chosen. And Lummis’ legislative efforts to introduce the reserve have not moved forward, even as her tenure in the Senate dwindles following her announcement that she will retire after this year.
During congressional hearings last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked if the government was able to bail out bitcoin, and Bessent said he had no such authority. More specifically, though, he said he can’t order US bankers to start buying up crypto.
For public procurement, industry may be better off looking to states at the moment. Several state governments pursued bitcoin reserve authorities last year and have been more flexible than the federal government in creating pockets of their budgets earmarked for digital assets.
Read more: Why doesn’t the US have a Bitcoin reserve yet?
