President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile, continuing his administration’s embrace of the cryptocurrency industry.
The announcement came on the eve of a Crypto Summit Trump is scheduled to host Friday at the White House with industry leaders.
“Just as it is in our country’s interest to thoughtfully manage national ownership and control of any other resource, our Nation must harness, not limit, the power of digital assets for our prosperity,” the order states.
The bitcoin in the reserve will come from assets held by the U.S. Department of Treasury that were seized in court proceedings or paid in civil penalties to executive agencies.
David Sacks, the White House czar for cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, posted on X that the U.S. has roughly 200,000 Bitcoin but “there has never been a complete audit.” He added that the order requires “a full accounting of the federal government’s digital asset holdings.”
Sacks called the Reserve “a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency.” The executive order describes Bitcoin as “digital gold.”
The Digital Asset Stockpile also will come from assets seized in court proceedings.
The executive order directs the Treasury and Commerce secretaries to work on “strategies” for acquiring additional bitcoin that are “budget neutral and do not impose incremental costs on United States taxpayers.”
Trump signed an executive order in January creating the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets and charged it with investigating the creation of the Stockpile.”
In a pair of social media posts Sunday, Trump mentioned five different cryptocurrencies that would be included in the stockpile, causing their values to spike.
Trump promoted cryptocurrencies on the campaign trail, telling a crowd gathered in Nashville in July for the Bitcoin Conference that he wanted to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet and bitcoin superpower of the world.” He has promised favorable regulation of the industry, which supported his campaign.
Trump also has a financial stake in the industry, launching a pair of cryptocurrency tokens and owning 60% of the crypto platform World Liberty Financial.
Sacks, a prominent tech investor, posted on X recently that he sold all of his cryptocurrency prior to Trump taking office.
President Joe Biden’s administration clashed with the volatile cryptocurrency industry over regulations, and brought enforcement actions against some crypto companies.
Trump is ushering in a more friendly approach to the industry. He has suggested a bitcoin reserve would keep the U.S. at the forefront on cryptocurrency.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo, filed legislation aimed at creating a bitcoin reserve. While acknowledging concerns about its volatility, she said it could help pay down the national debt and boost the U.S. dollar.
“While there may be short-term volatility, over the long term a bitcoin reserve like this will serve as an important and stable store of value,” Lummis wrote in a letter published in The Wall Street Journal.
Contributing: Bailey Schulz