U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government has no plans to purchase bitcoin (BTC) for the strategic reserve fund promoted by President Donald Trump.
In an interview Thursday, Bessent emphasized that the government will retain the seized bitcoin and will not sell the assets already seized. He added that future seizures could increase the stockpile, although he ruled out direct purchases on the market.
"We're not going to buy. We're going to use seized assets and continue accumulating them. We're going to stop selling them," the official stated.
Hours after his interview, Bessent posted a correction on X qualifying his initial stance, stating that the Treasury Department is committed to exploring “budget-neutral avenues” to acquire more BTC and fulfill Trump’s vision of positioning the United States as a “global Bitcoin superpower.”
This last statement suggests that while no direct purchases are currently planned, the government is not ruling out future strategies such as using revenue from other assets or even mining Bitcoin with unused government energy.
Furthermore, Bessent estimated that the country's current holdings, primarily from judicial seizures, are worth between $15 billion and $20 billion. This is slightly less than the community estimate.
According to Arkham Intelligence, the U.S. government holds 198,022 BTC, although no federal agency has officially confirmed this figure. This amount is equivalent to more than $23 billion, based on Bitcoin's current price of $117,000.
The Bitcoin Strategic Reserve was established in March by Trump's executive order. This measure was in addition to the creation of a Presidential Task Force on Digital Assets, tasked with designing a federal regulatory framework and evaluating the formation of a national reserve of digital assets.
Although the initial plan, at least as promised by Bo Hines, CEO of the Task Force, was to design strategies to acquire more Bitcoin without incurring additional costs for taxpayers, a clear proposal to achieve this was never presented. This, coupled with Hines' recent departure from the White House, reinforces the perception that the government will limit the reserve's growth to judicial forfeitures.
Bessent was also asked about the possibility of revaluing the country's 261.5 million ounces of gold, officially valued at around $11 billion according to the 1973 price, although its current market value is estimated at around $750 billion. The official said he does not foresee a revaluation, but reiterated that gold will remain an important store of value. Following his statements and the release of higher-than-expected inflation figures, the cryptocurrency market experienced declines.
