US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to create a Bitcoin reserve, marking a shift in the US government's stance on digital assets. David Sacks, White House Crypto and AI Czar, confirmed the development in a post on X, underscoring that President Trump fulfilled his promise of creating the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. He added, "This Executive Order underscores President Trump’s commitment to making the US the 'crypto capital of the world.”
Sacks added that the reserve will be capitalised with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, meaning it will not rely on taxpayers' money.
According to estimates, the US government owns about 200,000 Bitcoins. Trump's executive order on Bitcoin reserves directs "a full accounting of the federal government’s digital asset holdings."
In his post, Sacks stressed that the premature sales of Bitcoin have already cost US taxpayers over USD 17 billion in lost value, and the federal government will have a strategy to maximise the value of its holdings. According to the order, the US will not sell any Bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value, as Sacks termed the reserve like a "digital Fort Knox.".
The order authorises Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional Bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers, the post adds.
Additionally, the order seeks to establish a US Digital Asset Stockpile, which will consist of digital assets other than bitcoin forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.
The government will not acquire additional assets for the stockpile beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings. The purpose of the stockpile is responsible stewardship of the government’s digital assets under the Treasury Department.