Trump signs order to create bitcoin reserve, crypto stockpile

President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday evening establishing the creation of his promised Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.

The president vowed to work toward the creation of a cryptocurrency stockpile in an executive order he signed his first week in office. The January executive order formed a crypto working group led by White House Crypto Czar David Sacks and tasked with crafting an outline for the development and use of cryptocurrencies in the U.S. 

Trump surprised many in the crypto space earlier this week when he announced his proposed cryptocurrency reserve would include bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano in a post on his social media site Truth Social. The president initially only announced the latter three but in a subsequent post clarified that bitcoin and ether would be included.

Several industry leaders cautioned the president against including assets beyond the “digital gold” of bitcoin, noting his less well-known picks could be considered favoritism or putting the government’s finger on the scale. They also expressed concern for taxpayers having the brunt of the burden if a highly volatile asset class tanks. 

The announcement Thursday night appeared to be a compromise on those issues, creating two separate entities: a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve establishing bitcoin as a reserve asset and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile “consisting of digital assets other than bitcoin owned by the Department of Treasury,” according to the order.

Both stockpiles will be initially funded with assets owned by the Department of Treasury that were seized in criminal or other legal proceedings. Moving forward, other agencies are directed to “evaluate their legal authority” to transfer bitcoin they own to the reserve. 

The executive order states the U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the reserve and any additional bitcoin purchases will be done by the secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce departments who are asked to “develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided those strategies impose no incremental costs on American taxpayers.” 

White House Crypto Czar David Sacks said in a post on the social platform X that the government owns around 200,000 bitcoins after selling about half of what has been garnered through legal seizures. Sacks stated the U.S. sold the assets for $366 million, but they would have been worth over $17 billion today had they not. In a subsequent tweet Sacks stated “there has never been a complete audit” of the government’s bitcoin holdings. 

Because it is being funded with existing seizures, Sacks said “it will not cost taxpayers a dime.”

The government would keep the bitcoin “as a store of value,” Sacks said in a post on X. Essentially, the executive order calls for moving already-held digital assets to one place. The White House has yet to outline the purpose of the reserve or the benefit to taxpayers. 

“The purpose of the stockpile is responsible stewardship of the government’s digital assets under the Treasury Department,” Sacks said. 

The Treasury secretary will be able to “potential[ly]” sell digital assets from the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile. Like the bitcoin reserve, it will be funded by digital assets obtained through forfeiture and the government will not acquire assets beyond that.

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase and one of the richest men in crypto, responded to Sacks’ posts praising the initiative.

“Incredible execution from the Trump administration and a historic moment for bitcoin and crypto,” he wrote. “I expect many of the G20 to take notice and eventually follow America’s leadership.”

The executive order was signed hours before the president is set to meet with cryptocurrency industry leaders on Friday for a White House “crypto summit,” to flesh out how Trump will make the U.S. a hub for cryptocurrencies. Individuals invited to the event include Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy; Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood Markets; Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple; and Zach Witkoff, a founder of Trump’s crypto enterprise World Liberty Financial. Ripple gifted $5 million worth of XRP to Trump’s inaugural fund, according to Decrypt.

The meeting announced last Friday is focused on discussing the reserve.

Bitcoin initially soared following Trump’s election in November but has since dropped significantly. The price of bitcoin fell again Thursday following the signing of the order, driven by investors’ dismay that the plan does not call for the government to purchase additional digital assets.

The president’s opinion on crypto has done a full one-eighty turn over the four years he was out of office. Bolstered by large contributions from crypto enthusiasts in the 2024 campaign, Trump went from calling the digital asset a “scam” in his first term to making it a priority of his administration in his second.

Trump first proposed the idea of a bitcoin reserve at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in July. It was at this event he first promised he would make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.”