President Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve.
The reserve will be funded exclusively with bitcoin seized in criminal and civil forfeiture cases, so it does not come out of the taxpayers’ pockets.
White House A.I. and Crypto Czar David Sacks thanked Mr. Trump for “his leadership and vision in supporting this cutting-edge technology and for his rapid execution in supporting the digital asset industry. His administration is truly moving at ‘tech speed.’”
The order establishes a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, managed by the Treasury Department, to hold other seized cryptocurrencies.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are expected to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers.
The federal government controls about 200,000 bitcoin, and Mr. Trump’s order instructs an accounting of federal digital asset holdings and bans the sale of bitcoin from the reserve, establishing it as a permanent reserve of value.
Mr. Trump previously suggested in a Truth Social post that the reserve could include other cryptocurrencies such as XRP, SOL, ether and ADA.
However, some crypto investors balked at other currencies being included alongside bitcoin.
“I have nothing against XRP, SOL, or ADA but I do not think they are suitable for a Strategic Reserve,” said bitcoin billionaire Tyler Winklevoss on X. “Only one digital asset in the world right now meets the bar and that digital asset is bitcoin.”
Mr. Trump’s executive order comes ahead of the White House’s first-ever Crypto Summit which is scheduled for Friday and will include crypto industry leaders and members of the Presidential Working Group on Digital Assets.
Mr. Sacks will chair the summit, administered by Working Group Executive Director Bo Hines.
