Nearly a year after President Donald Trump’s executive order established a strategic U.S. Bitcoin reserve, Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, suggested that significant progress has been made regarding its legal and operational framework. Despite this, the Treasury Department maintains it will not engage in new Bitcoin acquisitions.
Speaking at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas on Monday, Witt stated that months have been dedicated to interpreting legal protections necessary for Bitcoin held by the government. He anticipates a significant announcement soon, describing it as a ‘breakthrough’ achievable before Congress enacts relevant legislation.
This development follows President Trump’s pledge of a strategic Bitcoin reserve at this same conference in 2024. Although his administration had initially expressed an intent to amass as much Bitcoin as possible, the Treasury Department later withdrew from such plans.
Currently, there is uncertainty regarding the alignment between executive goals and what has been delivered by both the Treasury and Congress.
In a report released last July detailing U.S. crypto policy, no acquisition strategy was mentioned. Later that month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that no additional Bitcoin would be purchased, restricting reserve growth to assets seized through law enforcement actions. Since then, there has been no public reversal of this stance, leaving new purchases to Congressional action.
On the same panel at the conference, Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK) announced plans to reintroduce a House version of Senator Cynthia Lummis’ BITCOIN Act as the ‘American Reserves Modernization Act’ in the coming weeks. This follows consultations with the House Financial Services Committee aiming to garner broader legislative support.
Begich emphasized that Congress should secure the current administration’s pro-Bitcoin policies before potential policy shifts under future administrations.
However, what the White House can actually accomplish may be more limited than Witt implies. While Trump’s executive order enabled the consolidation of Bitcoin from criminal forfeitures into a reserve, Matthew Pinnock, COO at Altura DeFi, noted to Decrypt that the executive branch lacks authority to purchase Bitcoin on open markets without Congressional approval.
Pinnock pointed out that any new spending requires Congress’s authorization and highlighted that executive orders do not carry legislative power. A succeeding administration could easily reverse these actions with a single directive.
He also criticized Bessent’s decision against budget-neutral purchases as complicating Senate Banking Committee deliberations, removing what he described as the bill’s strongest argument to skeptical legislators.
Pinnock concluded that announcements made at crypto conferences intended to bolster partisan agendas have had minimal real impact on the reserve.