US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Plan Stalls Over Interagency Control Dispute

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 6, 2025, creating a Treasury-managed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to consolidate bitcoin forfeited in criminal and civil cases. The holdings generally cannot be sold. The Treasury and Commerce departments were also authorized to develop ways to acquire more bitcoin without increasing the deficit, debt or burden on taxpayers, marking the first time the federal government had designated bitcoin as a long-term reserve asset.

As of March 4, 2026, U.S. government wallets tracked by Arkham held 328,272 bitcoin, a figure that had remained broadly unchanged over the past year. The government’s total crypto holdings were worth about $22.394 billion, including roughly $22 billion in bitcoin, down 26% from more than $30 billion when the order was signed in March 2025. A year on, the Treasury has yet to announce a budget-neutral acquisition strategy, leaving forfeited assets as the only source of additional holdings.

The U.S. government signed an executive order in 2025 outlining plans for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that would incorporate government-held crypto assets into national asset policy. The initiative is seen as a key test of whether the United States will elevate Bitcoin from a political commitment to an institutionalized reserve asset, with implications for governments and institutional investors worldwide.

David Bailey, a former Trump administration crypto adviser, recently told the Bitcoin Investor Week conference that the U.S. government had yet to actively accumulate Bitcoin since the executive order was signed, leaving implementation behind its public support. He criticized the current policy as remaining at the rhetorical stage of merely “liking Bitcoin” and urged the government to set out concrete purchasing and implementation plans as soon as possible.