Trump signs order to establish Bitcoin reserve, White House crypto czar says

Investing.com-- U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar David Sacks said on Thursday evening.

The formation of the reserve will not entail any government purchases of crypto, Sacks said, although he did state that the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce were now authorized to develop "budget-neutral" strategies to buy Bitcoin, as long as the purchases did not cost taxpayer money. 

The reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin seized by the federal government as part of criminal or civil asset forfeitures, Sacks said, and will not involve any new crypto purchases.

The government will not sell any of its Bitcoin deposited into the reserve, Sacks said in a social media post, and the Bitcoin pile will be kept as a store of value, akin to the government’s gold holdings.

Sacks said the government held about 200,000 Bitcoins, which is valued at about $17.3 billion based on Bitcoin’s current price. The world’s largest crypto fell nearly 4% after Sacks’ post and traded around $86,721 by 19:27 ET (00:27 GMT). 

Sacks said that there had never been an audit of the government’s Bitcoin holdings, and said that Thursday’s order will also direct a “full accounting” of the government’s digital asset holdings. 

Beyond Bitcoin, Sacks said Trump’s executive order will also entail the creation of a U.S. digital asset stockpile, which will be composed of other digital assets seized by the government. This stockpile will also not involve any new purchases of digital assets. 

Trump had last week said four other cryptos- Solana, Cardano, XRP, and Ether- will be included in his planned reserve.

The Department of Justice holds a bulk of the U.S.’ confiscated crypto, specifically Bitcoin, and has sold some of its holdings on the open market in intermittent sales. Sacks claimed that these sales were “premature,” and had cost U.S. taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value.

“Now the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings.”

Sacks’ statement comes just before a White House crypto summit, which is scheduled for Friday. The summit is expected to provide more cues on Trump’s plans for crypto regulation, after he ordered his cabinet to explore a regulatory framework for the industry. 

The Bitcoin reserve sees Trump deliver on some of his campaign promises of crypto-friendly regulation. But an absence of any government crypto purchases indicates that the reserve will have little actual bearing on crypto markets.