The White House’s top crypto adviser, Patrick Witt, and his predecessor in the role have both said they would need Congress to fully support the formation and activation of crypto funds. Executive orders do not carry the weight of law, and no legislation has yet advanced, although such efforts have simmered among lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives. And if Republicans lose the majority in the House or both chambers in this year’s midterm elections, such a bill is unlikely to formalize Trump’s concept in the near future.
Read more: Those who cheered the US Bitcoin reserve spent a year watching Trump’s order languish
Even as the administration works out the structure of the funds, it’s unclear whether it will be able to pull the lever to officially place its bitcoin holdings — estimated at more than 300,000, or about $21 billion — into this virtual vault.
Government holdings of bitcoin would be a long-term investment. Trump and his administration have called it a strategic reserve, although that doesn’t fit the usual definition of that phrase because it’s meant to be held for a long time and not distributed in case of a market emergency.
When Trump issued the order, he asked his administration to find ways to acquire more bitcoin without using taxpayer money. Several ideas have since been floated, but if they had started buying the asset when Trump asked, they would have bought it at $93,000, and BTC has fallen by about a third since then to the current price just above $64,000.
