Foreign media reports that the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has been established for over a year, but it currently mainly holds Bitcoins that have been confiscated by the government. With July approaching, market attention is shifting to whether the White House's blueprint can continue to move forward, and whether Congress will open a legal channel for the Treasury to actually purchase Bitcoin.
The existing reserves are mainly composed of confiscated assets.
The article points out that after Trump signed the executive order in March 2025, the United States established a strategic Bitcoin reserve and set up a separate digital asset reserve pool to hold crypto assets acquired by the government through criminal and civil forfeiture proceedings.
The core requirement for Bitcoin reserves is that they cannot be sold, and the assets must be held as reserves for the long term. However, the executive order does not directly authorize the government to use public funds to buy new Bitcoins; it only requires the Treasury and Commerce Departments to study a "budget-neutral" approach to increasing reserves.
July focuses on the implementation of the blueprint
The article mentions that on July 30, 2025, the Presidential Digital Asset Markets Working Group released a report that clearly continued the "hold, do not sell" approach and proposed to study further paths to acquire Bitcoin in a budget-neutral manner.
However, the report does not address the core issue: whether governments have a clear legal mandate to hold and continue buying Bitcoin long-term. The report also notes that some of the seized assets may be used for victim compensation or ultimately transferred to the Treasury's general account, thus the size of the Bitcoin reserves that could be permanently incorporated remains uncertain.
The two bills are clearly different
The article argues that what truly determines whether the reserves can move from a paper plan to actual operation is congressional legislation. Currently, the most attention is focused on the BITCOIN Act, spearheaded by Senator Cynthia Lummis. This bill advocates a more aggressive accumulation path, and if passed, the Treasury Department could begin formal purchases as early as the fourth quarter of 2026.
Another bill is the American Reserve Modernization Act, pushed by Representative Nick Begich. Compared to the former, this version removes the large-scale purchase target and instead emphasizes long-term lock-up, requiring that Bitcoin entering the reserve cannot be sold, exchanged, auctioned, or disposed of for at least 20 years.
Budget neutrality limits the size of purchases
The article points out that the most critical constraint on the current reserve program is "budget neutrality." Both executive orders and major legislative proposals attempt to avoid directly using taxpayer funds to buy Bitcoin.
Under this premise, potential funding sources can only come from confiscations, fines, or other adjustments to the fiscal balance sheet. This design helps reduce political resistance but also directly limits the scale of Bitcoin purchases the US can make in the future. The significance of July therefore lies in whether the White House and Congress can transform existing reserves into a national reserve capable of sustained growth.
