U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar David Sacks said on Thursday evening.
But the reserve will not entail any government purchases of crypto, Sacks said.
The reserve will be capitalized with #Bitcoin seized by the federal government as part of criminal or civil asset forfeitures, Sacks said, and will not involve any new crypto purchases.
The government will not sell any of its Bitcoin deposited into the reserve, Sacks said, and the Bitcoin pile will be kept as a store of value.
Sacks said the government held about 200,000 Bitcoins, which is valued at about $17.3 billion based on Bitcoin’s current price. The world’s largest crypto fell nearly 4% after Sacks’ post and traded around $86,721 by 19:27 ET (00:27 GMT).
Sacks said that there had never been an audit of the government’s Bitcoin holdings, and said he will direct a “full accounting” of the government’s digital asset holdings.
Beyond Bitcoin, Sacks said Trump’s executive order will also entail the creation of a U.S. digital asset stockpile, which will be composed of other digital assets seized by the government. This stockpile will also not involve any new purchases of digital assets.
Trump had last week said five cryptos- Solana, Cardano, XRP, Ether, and Bitcoin- will be included in his planned reserve.
The Department of Justice holds a bulk of the U.S.’ confiscated crypto, specifically Bitcoin, and has sold some of its holdings on the open market in intermittent sales. Sacks claimed that these sales were “premature,” and had cost U.S. taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value.