Trump orders creation of 'Fort Knox' reserve of bitcoins and digital assets
The US President has ordered his administration to create a Bitcoin reserve to store the seized assets, and a separate cryptocurrency warehouse is currently being formed.
Jesse Hamilton | Edited by Benjamin Schiller Updated Mar 7, 2025 2:05 AM UTC Published Mar 7, 2025 12:34 AM UTC
What you need to know:
- President Donald Trump has ordered the creation of a Bitcoin reserve for American assets.
- The decree also implies the creation of a cryptocurrency reserve for other assets.
- Initially, all assets that will be involved will include only those that have been confiscated in civil and criminal cases.
- Cryptocurrency prices fell sharply in the first minutes after the announcement.
President Donald Trump has directed his administration to create a strategic bitcoin reserve to store assets seized by the government, and has also called for the creation of a reserve of other types of digital assets.
At this stage, all assets mentioned in the order will be confiscated through civil or criminal proceedings. Bitcoin will be stored for the long term in what has been called a “digital Fort Knox.”
“The reserve will be made up of bitcoins owned by the federal government that have been seized in criminal or civil cases,” David Sachs, a crypto adviser to Trump, said in a statement posted on the social media platform X.
In the video of the president signing the order, Trump says of the reserve creation: “He made a promise, right?”
The order also prompted government officials to look for ways to increase the amount of bitcoin in reserve without hurting the federal budget.
“The Treasury Secretary and the Commerce Secretary are authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies do not result in additional costs to American taxpayers,” Sachs said.
Assets for the non-bitcoin hoard could be any cryptocurrency that the government decides to confiscate. Sachs did not specify the specific names of assets in this category, although several have been recently mentioned by the president.
Executive orders do not always carry the same legal force as acts of Congress, so it remains unclear how the Trump administration will handle the details of the order, which had not yet been released Thursday night. It is also unclear what the total value of current U.S. cryptocurrency holdings might be.
Market reaction
Bitcoin fell nearly 5% to $85,000 within minutes of the order, perhaps due to frustration that the reserve consists of tokens already in government custody but — for now — does not include new purchases.
Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL) have all lost 4-8% in the last hour as the order prevents the government from making new purchases of these tokens.
The order's announcement comes ahead of an industry summit at the White House, where leaders from across the cryptocurrency sector are set to discuss policy issues with members of the Trump administration. The president was expected to provide details on cryptocurrency reserves before or during the event.
“The creation of the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and the US Digital Asset Reserve is a significant development for both cryptocurrency and US global leadership.
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