On Thursday night, President Donald Trump approved the establishment of a strategic bitcoin reserve, along with a separate U.S. stockpile of other digital assets, fulfilling a campaign promise ahead of the “crypto summit” gathering at the White House on Friday.
According to Trump’s crypto czar, David Sacks, in a post on the social media platform X, the bitcoin reserve will be funded with bitcoin (BTC-USD) already owned by the federal government, acquired through criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings.
“This means it will not cost taxpayers a dime,” Sacks said. Before signing the executive order in the Oval Office, Trump asked Sacks if he believed in the reserve and then said, “We made the promise” — referring to the pledge of a bitcoin reserve he made on the 2024 campaign trail.
Sacks mentioned on X that the U.S. government currently holds an estimated 200,000 bitcoins, having sold about half of what it seized through criminal proceedings.
However, he noted that a full audit has never been conducted. If the government hadn’t sold those bitcoins for approximately $360 million over the past decade, White House officials suggest their holdings could now be worth around $17 billion. Sacks also emphasized that the U.S. will not sell any bitcoin from the reserve and will keep it as a store of value.
The reserve, he added, “is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called ‘digital gold.’”
Sacks told last Sunday in a social media post on X, “I sold all my cryptocurrency (including BTC, ETH, and SOL) prior to the start of the administration.” On Monday he said he sold a $74,000 position in a Bitwise ETF and does not have “large indirect holdings.”
