An announcement on the long-awaited US strategic bitcoin reserve (SBR) will come “in the next few weeks,” Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Digital Assets Council, told CoinDesk’s Consensus Miami conference on Wednesday.
The federal effort to inventory, centralize and secure US bitcoin and other digital assets have been running in the background for months, Witt said. Following President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for bitcoin and other crypto assets to be set aside in long-term holdings, the White House halted what Witt characterized as “fire sale” liquidations under the previous administration and began reviewing which crypto each agency held.
“We have heard stories and confirmed some of them about cold wallets being kept in desk drawers in various agencies,” he said.
Witt cited a recent exploit involving assets held by the US Marshals Service as motivating evidence for centralization. Bloomberg reported in January that the Marshals Service was investigating a possible hack of US government digital asset accounts after chain investigator ZachXBT claimed a hacker stole more than $60 million by the end of 2025, including funds from public purses.
“It’s a good example of why it was so necessary for the president to establish the SBR and for him to direct the agencies to take these assets very seriously and protect them properly,” Witt said. “Storage is unique to digital assets.”
Witt declined to say how much bitcoin or other crypto the federal government currently holds.
“Number one is we want to get our own house in order. We want to properly protect those assets before we discuss the details of that,” he said. He suggested that the upcoming announcement would address some of the open questions about size and structure, but said he did not want to “pre-empt any of the other principals involved.”
He also clarified that the reserve will not automatically absorb every newly seized asset. Crypto seized in active lawsuits is pending until forfeiture is completed, he said, with assets potentially returned to victims through restitution before being moved to the bitcoin reserve or separate storage expected for other crypto assets.
As for the legal basis, Witt said much of the staff work has gone into questions at the attorney general level about what authority allows agencies to keep the assets, for how long and whether they are subject to congressional clawback.
“This really hadn’t been looked into before the president signed the executive order,” he said.
Codification must be pursued through Congress, Witt said, citing Sen. Cynthia Lummis’ BITCOIN Act in the Senate and Rep. Nick Begich’s American Reserves Modernization Act, a renamed update of the same bill in the US House of Representatives.
“It always has to be followed up with proper legislation,” Witt said.
The likely need for a legislative basis for the formation of the bitcoin reserve has been a major limitation in this process. It’s unclear when Congress will find the bandwidth to push a reservation bill through.
