President Donald Trump’s American bitcoin the reserve does not yet exist and there is no mechanism within the federal government for bulk purchasing of crypto.
Keep that in mind as you consider this weekend’s speculation about what price would cause the White House to hit a buy button, thanks in large part to CNBC speculator Jim Cramer. There is no such button.
The president did order the creation of a “strategic reserve” to contain Bitcoin, but that did not give rise to this “strategic reserve.” The Treasury Department and crypto advisors have spent months auditing federal crypto holdings (although White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt told CoinDesk last week that they still wouldn’t share a number). But the process ran into a problem: Supporters said they still needed Congress to establish the stockpile under the law.
The new US crypto industry law for stablecoin issuers does not include it, nor does the sweeping crypto market structure bill currently being considered by the US Senate. Getting legislation through this Congress – even less controversial issues – is a daunting challenge, and industry lobbyists are currently focused on the bill to finally establish market and oversight regulations for digital assets. A reserve may not even be second on the priority list, as crypto tax rules also call for it.
When Cramer suggested on air that Trump had a plan, saying, “I heard at 60 he was going to fill the bitcoin stash,” crypto markets took notice. The distressed asset recently fell to $62,840 but spent a few days at just under $70,000, and if the U.S. government was willing to invest at $60,000, it could be a big deal. But the rumor isn’t supported by what’s happening with the federal fund.
For now, Trump’s executive order from last year to create a bitcoin reserve and a separate stockpile of other crypto assets awaits compliance. And his order carefully rejected the idea that the government would buy 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 would now be set aside 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 could hover around $23 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence data on associated wallets in the United States.
Some ideas have been floated by Trump advisers and by lawmakers such as Sen. Cynthia Lummis about how the federal government could purchase bitcoin without relying on taxpayers, but no solution has yet been settled on. And Lummis’ legislative efforts to enact the reservation have made no progress, even as her Senate tenure diminishes after her announcement that she will retire after this year.
During congressional hearings last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked whether the government had the ability to bail out Bitcoin, and Bessent said he had no such authority. More specifically, however, he said he could not order American bankers to start buying cryptocurrencies.
For government purchases, the industry might be better off looking to states for now. Several state governments sued Bitcoin reserve authorities last year and have been more nimble than the federal government in establishing pockets of their budgets earmarked for digital assets.
Read more: Why doesn’t the US have a Bitcoin reserve yet?
