On March 6, 2025, Trump signed the executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. At the time, his crypto adviser David Sacks described it as a “digital Fort Knox for cryptocurrency” and said that not a single BTC would ever be sold from it. That language led many investors to expect large-scale government Bitcoin purchases to follow quickly. But that never happened.
Even now, it is still unclear how much Bitcoin the U.S. government actually holds. Although Trump said the administration would “carefully audit” federal BTC holdings, no official figure has been released. One likely reason is that seized coins are spread across multiple agencies, including the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The main issue is budget neutrality
According to the White House fact sheet on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are authorized to develop “budget-neutral strategies” for acquiring additional BTC, provided those strategies do not create extra costs for American taxpayers.
Several funding ideas have already been discussed. One of the most prominent came from Senator Cynthia Lummis, who suggested selling a small portion of the U.S. gold reserve to fund Bitcoin purchases. The U.S. government currently holds assets worth around 5.6 trillion dollars, including more than 8,100 tons of gold. However, that gold is still carried on the books at the outdated official price of 42.22 dollars per ounce, a figure set back in 1973.
If the gold reserve were revalued at the current market price of around 5,180 dollars per ounce, the U.S. gold stockpile would be worth more than 1.35 trillion dollars. Even reallocating just 1% of that amount would theoretically generate roughly 13.5 billion dollars, enough to buy around 194,000 BTC.
But that scenario comes with both political and systemic risks. Revaluing gold would change how it is perceived within the monetary system and could raise fresh questions about the long-term stability of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.
The reserve exists on paper, not in real infrastructure
One of the main public faces of Trump’s crypto agenda was Bo Hines, who led the White House Digital Assets Council. He regularly hinted at progress on the Bitcoin reserve, but rarely provided concrete details. He later left the administration for Tether, and his successor, Patrick Witt, adopted a more cautious tone, pointing to serious legal and organizational hurdles.
The core problem is that the U.S. Treasury still lacks the authority needed to launch a fully operational strategic reserve. Special custody accounts, internal operating structures, and formal management procedures would all require an act of Congress. Until then, the reserve exists more as a political concept than as an institutional reality.
Even if the U.S. government wanted to begin buying Bitcoin immediately, it still does not have the full infrastructure in place to execute those purchases and securely manage the holdings afterward. On top of that, an executive order alone does not make the policy permanent, since a future administration could revoke it.
Why BTC purchases could still happen in 2026
Despite the long delay, there is still a path toward a turnaround in 2026. One of the most realistic options would be to attach Bitcoin reserve language to a larger legislative package, such as the annual U.S. defense budget. In that form, the measure could have a better chance of passing through Congress than as a standalone crypto bill.
If such a move lines up with budget negotiations in the fall or final passage in December, Trump’s administration could present it as a political win ahead of the midterm elections and use it to appeal to crypto-friendly voters.
Potential BTC purchases also would not necessarily need to be funded through gold. Other options could include tariff revenues or interest income from government-held assets. That would give Trump a convenient political narrative: his America-first trade policy would not only support U.S. industry, but also make it possible to build a national Bitcoin reserve at no direct cost to taxpayers.
Conclusion
The U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve still looks more like a political promise than a functioning state mechanism. But the idea has not disappeared. If the White House can solve the legal, custody, and funding issues, the United States could still move from symbolic rhetoric to actual BTC purchases in 2026.
