- White House confirms the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve announcement is coming within weeks.
- Federal agencies had crypto stored in desk drawers. A full audit is now underway.
- A $46 million US Marshals hack proved why proper Bitcoin custody is urgently needed.
The Trump administration is preparing to go public with new details on the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within the coming weeks. Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, made the announcement at the Consensus Miami conference on Wednesday.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in the background. We will make an announcement in the coming weeks laying out where we are going,” Witt said.
What Has Been Happening Behind the Scenes
Since President Trump signed the executive order establishing the reserve, federal agencies have been auditing, centralizing, and securing the digital assets they hold. Witt described the process as getting the government’s house in order before making anything public.
Witt said investigators found cold wallets being stored in desk drawers across various federal agencies. The administration halted what he described as fire sale liquidations of seized crypto assets that had been standard practice under the previous administration and began a full inventory of holdings across every agency.
Witt declined to disclose the total size of federal crypto holdings, saying the priority is proper custody before any public disclosure.
The Hack That Made the Case
Witt pointed to a recent security incident as proof of why the reserve was necessary. A hack targeting digital assets held by the US Marshals Service resulted in the alleged theft of over $46 million from government seizure wallets. The incident led to the arrest of John Daghita in Saint Martin earlier this year.
“It is a case in point for why it was so necessary that the president established the reserve and instructed agencies to take these assets seriously,” Witt said. “Custody is unique for digital assets.”
What Comes Next
The upcoming announcement is expected to address the structure and size of the reserve. Witt also confirmed the reserve will need to be formally codified through legislation, citing Senator Cynthia Lummis’s BITCOIN Act in the Senate and Representative Nick Begich’s American Reserves Modernization Act in the House as the two bills most likely to provide that legal foundation.
Not every seized asset will automatically flow into the reserve. Crypto held in active legal proceedings remains in pending status until forfeiture is finalized, with some assets potentially returned to victims through restitution before being transferred to the reserve.
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