White House digital-assets official Patrick Witt said the administration is preparing an announcement on the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, describing recent work as a “breakthrough” in making the reserve legally sound and operationally secure. His comments suggest the next step is likely to focus on implementation, custody and agency coordination rather than a confirmed open-market Bitcoin purchase program.
Speaking with Scott Melker in an interview released May 17, Witt confirmed once again that the reserve effort has continued behind the scenes even as broader crypto-market structure legislation has dominated Washington’s digital-asset agenda. The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, he said, was never dropped; it was simply moving through a slower interagency process triggered by the earlier executive order.
“There’s still progress there. There’s still work going on behind the scenes,” Witt said. “We never stopped working on it.”
US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Update Nears
Witt credited Harry Jung, his deputy, with leading much of the internal process, including coordination across agencies and White House policy teams responsible for ensuring that executive orders are carried out. The work, he said, has involved the less visible but critical mechanics of government implementation: legal memos, agency authorities, asset safeguards and the question of whether existing powers are sufficient.
“We’ll have an announcement. And I wish I could say more at this time,” Witt said. “It’s a breakthrough as far as getting everything in place, legally sound, properly safeguarding the assets.”
That phrasing matters. The market-sensitive question around the reserve remains whether the US government will eventually move beyond retaining seized Bitcoin and pursue additional accumulation. Witt did not confirm that. Instead, his comments pointed to the architecture of the reserve itself: how Bitcoin already held by the government is identified, secured, transferred, accounted for and separated from the broader US Digital Asset Stockpile.
Witt tied the urgency partly to the government’s existing exposure to digital assets. He referenced the theft of assets from US Marshals Service holdings involving “tier 2 assets,” calling it a proof point that federal digital-asset custody requires a different level of care.
“These assets have to be safeguarded. They are unique,” Witt said. “It’s going to require the government to do this in a bit of a different way and obviously take it very, very seriously because we have more of these assets on the balance sheet.”
The reserve has also become a legislative question. Witt said executive orders are “very reversible,” citing the way incoming administrations often undo prior executive actions. For that reason, he said the administration wants the reserve framework codified into law rather than left dependent on presidential authority alone.
Witt pointed to Senator Cynthia Lummis’ BITCOIN Act and a House effort led by Representative Nick Begich, the American Reserves Modernization Act, or ARMA. According to Witt, the House bill has incorporated stakeholder feedback and could potentially move through a committee markup before seeking a path alongside must-pass legislation.
The broader policy logic is geopolitical as much as domestic. Witt said other jurisdictions are watching Washington’s digital-asset agenda closely, particularly the CLARITY Act and related legislation. In his framing, a US Bitcoin reserve is not isolated from market-structure reform, stablecoin rules or bank-permissible-activity provisions; it is part of a wider attempt to define the financial infrastructure the US wants to lead.
“There’s no more powerful institutional sponsorship than the US government saying we give this a thumbs up and we think that this should be part of the financial architecture,” Witt said. He added that if the US fails to set the rules, “we will be following somebody else’s rule book.”
At press time, BTC traded at $76,825.
from Bitcoinist.com https://ift.tt/OPUJ2wY
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