A White House official told a room of crypto industry leaders this week that the Trump administration wants to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible.
At a closed-door roundtable hosted by the Bitcoin Policy Institute on Tuesday, Bo Hines, executive director of the Presidential Working Group on Digital Assets, told participants the White House is intent on acquiring as much Bitcoin as it can, according to multiple attendees.
When asked by someone in the room exactly how much Bitcoin the U.S. government might ultimately acquire, Hines joked the question was akin to asking someone how many dollars they’d want, one roundtable attendee told Decrypt.
A White House official confirmed to Decrypt that Hines indeed made the statement about acquiring as much Bitcoin as possible, but added the caveat that any such acquisitions would be made “in a budget neutral way that doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime.”
The private roundtable, which followed a public “Bitcoin for America” policy summit, hosted Bitcoin heavyweights, including Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor, Marathon Digital CEO Fred Thiel, Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley, and Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey. It also featured three U.S. senators: Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Bernie Moreno (R-OH).
At one point during the roundtable, a participant asked Bo Hines whether the White House supports the Bitcoin Act—a piece of legislation reintroduced in the Senate by Lummis on Tuesday that would require the U.S. government buy up to one million BTC, worth roughly $80 billion, and would enshrine into law the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve established by President Donald Trump’s recent executive order.
After receiving the question, according to one roundtable attendee, Hines then turned to Lummis, whom he was sat next to, and said the White House plans to support legislation that puts a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve into law, and will apply pressure to make sure it passes Congress.
A White House official emphasized to Decrypt that Hines did not, however, endorse any specific piece of legislation during the event.
It is currently estimated the U.S. government holds nearly 200,000 BTC, acquired via civil and criminal forfeitures. Senior White House officials have pushed the line in recent days that they support the government purchasing additional Bitcoin to buttress a strategic reserve, so long as those acquisitions are “budget neutral.”
It is debatable whether Lummis’ Bitcoin Act can be considered budget neutral. The bill calls for the U.S. to purchase some $80 billion worth of BTC at current prices—but plans to do so principally by obligating the Federal Reserve to hand over revenues that would theoretically be generated if the central bank were to have its gold certificates reevaluated at market prices. The certificates were last priced in 1971, when the U.S. went off the gold standard. Gold has since increased by over 6,800% in value.
