Bessent Reaffirms U.S. Plans for Strategic Bitcoin Reserve After Market Jitters

In an X post on Thursday, Bessent said the Treasury remains “committed to exploring budget-neutral pathways” to purchase Bitcoin, reiterating the administration’s pledge to make the United States the

“Bitcoin superpower of the world.”

He confirmed that Bitcoin forfeited to the federal government would form the reserve’s foundation.

The clarification came hours after comments to FOX Business appeared to suggest the government had abandoned direct Bitcoin purchases.

“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,”  

Bessent said in the interview, triggering a sharp market reaction. Bitcoin’s price slid from $121,073 to $118,886 within 40 minutes, erasing nearly $55 billion from its market capitalization, according to CoinGecko.

Concerns over the pace of the reserve’s development have been simmering for months, with some industry figures warning the U.S. risks being overtaken by other nations. Braiins CEO Eli Nagar criticized the prolonged deliberation, posting on X that continued

“exploration without execution starts to look like avoidance.”

While the Treasury has yet to initiate fresh purchases, Bessent said the department has no plans to liquidate its existing holdings.

“We’re going to stop selling,”

he told FOX Business, estimating the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve’s value at between $15 billion and $20 billion.

Data from BitBo’s Bitcoin Treasuries tracker places U.S. holdings at 198,012 BTC, worth approximately $23.5 billion at current prices.

Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order on March 6 establishing both a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, both of which would initially use crypto forfeited in government criminal cases. 

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