It's been 5 months since the US President, Donald Trump signed an executive order that creates a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and a “Digital Asset Stockpile” and there hasn't been much done to fill up this reserves.
Whilst initially, both reserves were to capitalize on cryptocurrencies forfeited in government criminal cases, the long-term purpose of the establishment of a strategic reserve was to have a sort of digital Fort Knox, filled with crypto assets that would never be sold but kept as a store of value.
We've come across disclosures that the government aims to employ budget-neutral means for the acquisition of these assets but even with independent proposals such as Bitbonds from industry players, not much has been done, for all anyone knows, the US Treasury is still “exploring” budget-neutral ways to do this, yet the United States has added $1.87 trillion in debt and thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, OBBBA, the US could add another $5.7 trillion over the next decade to its debt.
But certainly, the American people are the priority and the administration doesn't want to do anything that would “cost” them.
The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, recently revealed on FOX Business that the government isn't going to buy Bitcoin:
“We’ve also started to get into the 21st century, a Bitcoin reserve. We’re not going to be buying that, but we are going to use confiscated assets and continue to build that up.”
Apparently, Bitcoin crashed within 40 minutes of his comment, wiping out nearly $55 billion off the asset's market capitalization.
Following this reaction, Bessent returned to X to take back his earlier comment:
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clarified that his department was still exploring budget-neutral ways to buy Bitcoin for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, in contrast with a recent comment suggesting it was off the table, which triggered a Bitcoin sell-off.
“Treasury is committed to exploring budget-neutral pathways to acquire more Bitcoin to expand the reserve, and to execute on the President’s promise to make the United States the ‘Bitcoin superpower of the world,’” Bessent clarified in an X post on Thursday. – Cointelegraph report
Clearly, that is contradictory, it is not even an apology for the earlier comment, which would solidify it as a mistake, this is just a straight up low substance tweet to soften the market and industry reaction to what was earlier said.
It feels like the community is being manipulated and that the government will never really buy Bitcoin. It would make sense if they don't because it's generally not in their place to take risks, their role is often to take a fat cut when the real risk takers profit from having some balls.
It is straight up comedy, I mean I've always been of the notion that any government buying Bitcoin would simply be it signalling that the asset is poised to outperform its own currency and economy.
That cannot be a good look. It is something industry participants aren't considering now, even though we used to be strong preachers of this gospel. Somehow people now think the US buying Bitcoin would be good for its economy.
There's so much at stake for the government as a body that numbers going up isn't exactly a reasonable offer to accept the trade-off. It is safe to say that stablecoins are simply what this government cares about, not Bitcoin and any altcoins.
It would truly be a miracle if the US government actually starts buying Bitcoin and other crypto assets.