Bitget CEO Grace Chen stated that prior to Trump's departure, the United States Government had little chance of buying bitcoin on its own initiative and enriching its strategic reserves. In her view, the current arrangement was more like stopping the sale of held bitcoin than initiating a continuous buy-in plan.
The current executive order does not provide for a purchase.
The United States established a strategic bitcoin reserve and digital asset reserve pool in March 2025. Under an executive order, the Ministry of Finance is required to trust Bitcoin, which ultimately falls under the federal Government through criminal or civil forfeiture proceedings. This part of the assets may not, in principle, be sold, except in cases of court orders, compensation to victims and enforcement actions.
Chen pointed out that it was different to retain bitcoin, which was already under the control of the Government, from the voluntary purchase of public resources. The establishment of formal buy-in mechanisms usually requires higher-level policy decisions and may also trigger discussions at the parliamentary and bipartisan levels.
The White House did not completely rule out the possibility of continuing to increase the holding of bitcoin, but the executive order only required the Treasury and the Ministry of Commerce to study access options that did not increase the taxpayer ' s cost, without a budget, timetable or open-market buy-in authorization.
The main effect is to reduce potential sales pressure.
The market generally estimates that the United States Government is close to 198,000 BTCs, or about 1 per cent of Bitcoin in circulation. The value of these assets is approximately $15.4 billion, at the price of approximately $78,000 as described in the paper.
However, this figure is not equal to the final available size of the strategic reserve. The seized assets are not the same as those that have been confiscated and formally attributed to the federal Government, and part of the currency may still be in judicial proceedings, compensation arrangements or return processes.
As a result, the current and more explicit role of the reserve for the market is to reduce a portion of the potential for sale of known government silos, rather than to create new and continuous buyouts. The U.S. Marshals had previously auctioned Bitcoin on several occasions, and the White House estimated that the Government had sold approximately 195,000 BTCs prior to the establishment of the reserve.
Following this, the National Assembly and the financial arrangements
United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has previously expressed a similar position. In August 2025, he indicated that the reserve would be expanded by confiscating assets, rather than being bought directly by the Government on the market, and that the sale of existing warehouses would cease.
More radical proposals have emerged at the parliamentary level. Including the one proposed by Cynthia Lummis, which had advocated the purchase of 1 million BTCs within five years, and another proposed in May 2026, which introduced longer-term holding arrangements. However, none of these proposals has been translated into actual federal purchase plans.
In addition, it is difficult for the outside world to accurately verify the real-time size of the United States strategic reserve. Public wallet tracking can only see address activity related to the Government and does not fully confirm the attribution, confiscation status and liability. In July, approximately 3940 BTCs and 30,000 ETHs were transferred to Coinbase Prime, but such transfers do not in themselves amount to a sale.