At a Senate Banking Committee hearing yesterday, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets Bo Hines sat flanked by Chairman Tim Scott and Digital Assets Subcommittee Chair Cynthia Lummis and confirmed that the United States has already begun moving seized or previously held Bitcoin into the newly created Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Describing the next phase, Hines told lawmakers that “there are a lot of different actors that held on to some Bitcoin and in some fashion or another,” adding that “now the process begins in […] establishing the reserve, the actual infrastructure behind it, and getting all of that accomplished.”
Hines stressed that publication of the full audit is optional: “There’s nothing in the EO that mandates that that report become public, but we could choose to make it public at some point.”
The administration’s strategic intent is unambiguous. “We’ve stated publicly that Bitcoin is digital gold,” Hines said, repeating language he has used since early March. “We believe it’s in the best interest of the United States to garner as much as we can possibly get.” That ambition, he added, must be squared with the order’s fiscal guard-rails: “Obviously this has to be done in budget-neutral ways that don’t cost the taxpayer a dime. The president was clear about that in the executive order.”
Hines, gesturing to the two senators beside him, struck an optimistic note with regards to acquiring Bitcoin in a budget-neutral way: “I think we have some very creative minds, two of which are sitting up here with me, and I think we’ll begin moving very quickly on that.”
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $106,766.
