President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, White House Artificial Intelligence and Crypto Czar David Sacks said in a Thursday (March 6) post on X.
The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will be capitalized with bitcoin seized in criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings and owned by the federal government, so it “will not cost taxpayers a dime,” Sacks said in the post.
The executive order also calls for a full accounting of the federal government’s digital asset holdings, Sacks said, adding that there has never been such an audit and that it is estimated that the government owns about 200,000 bitcoin.
Bitcoin deposited into the reserve will not be sold. Instead, it will be kept as a store of value serving like a “digital Fort Knox” for bitcoin, Sacks said.
“Premature sales of bitcoin have already cost U.S. taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value,” Sacks said in the post. “Now the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings.”
The executive order authorizes the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce to develop “budget-neutral strategies” for acquiring additional bitcoin at no incremental cost to taxpayers.
The U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile established by the executive order will consist of digital assets other than bitcoin that have been forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings, Sacks said. Beyond that, the government will not acquire additional assets for the stockpile.
“The purpose of the Stockpile is responsible stewardship of the government’s digital assets under the Treasury Department,” Sacks said in the post.
Sacks added in the post: “This Executive Order underscores President Trump’s commitment to making the U.S. the ‘crypto capital of the world.’”
Trump said in a Jan. 23 executive order that a newly established Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets would, among other things, consider the creation of a “strategic national digital assets stockpile.”
On Sunday (March 2) Trump announced not just the creation of a U.S. strategic cryptocurrency reserve but also the digital assets it could be composed of: bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, Solana’s SOL coin and Cardano’s ADA
