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US Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Make Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Permanent

On May 22, 2026, the fifteenth anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day, Representative Nick Begich, Republican of Alaska, introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to permanently codify a strategic bitcoin reserve into federal law. The legislation aims to transform what began as an executive order under President Donald Trump into a durable, congressionally mandated program. The bill has already attracted co-sponsors from both parties, a rare feat in a Congress where digital asset policy remains sharply contested.

The timing is not accidental. Bitcoin traded above $100,000 for much of 2025 and into 2026. The federal government already holds an estimated 200,000 BTC, seized through criminal forfeiture actions over the past decade. Begich's bill would prohibit the sale of those holdings and establish a formal acquisition framework to grow the reserve over time.

The Executive Order That Started It All

President Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a broader Digital Asset Stockpile. The order directed the Treasury Department to retain all bitcoin seized through law enforcement and to explore budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional BTC. It also created a working group chaired by the White House crypto czar, David Sacks, to coordinate policy across agencies.

Executive orders, however, are fragile instruments. A future president could reverse the directive with a stroke of a pen. Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming introduced the BITCOIN Act in the Senate in 2024, proposing the U.S. government purchase up to 1 million BTC over five years. That bill stalled in committee. Begich's House bill takes a different approach. Rather than mandating large-scale purchases, it focuses on locking in the existing reserve, preventing liquidation, and creating a transparent reporting framework.

The distinction matters. Lummis's bill faced criticism for its price tag, estimated at roughly $70 billion to $100 billion at the time of introduction. Begich's legislation sidesteps that objection by starting with what the government already owns and building incrementally.

What the Bill Contains

The legislation, titled the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act, has several key provisions. First, it would prohibit any federal agency from selling, transferring, or otherwise disposing of bitcoin held by the United States government without explicit congressional authorization. This codifies the non-sale policy from Trump's executive order into statute, making it far harder to reverse.

Second, the bill establishes a quarterly audit and disclosure requirement. The Treasury Department would be required to publish proof-of-reserves attestations every 90 days, disclosing the total BTC balance, the wallet addresses used for custody, and any acquisitions or movements during the reporting period. The Government Accountability Office would be tasked with independent verification.

Third, the legislation creates a framework for budget-neutral acquisition. The Treasury could use proceeds from the sale of other seized digital assets, such as stablecoins, altcoins, and tokenized securities, to acquire additional bitcoin. It could also accept bitcoin donations and direct certain fine revenues toward BTC purchases. No taxpayer appropriations would be required.

Fourth, the bill mandates self-custody standards. Federal bitcoin holdings would be stored in cold storage using multi-signature wallets managed across at least three separate federal agencies. No third-party custodian would be permitted to hold the keys. This provision reflects lessons learned from the collapse of FTX, where billions in customer assets were commingled and mismanaged.

Bipartisan Co-Sponsors and Political Dynamics

Begich, a freshman representative who won Alaska's at-large seat in the 2024 election, has positioned himself as a pro-Bitcoin voice within the House Republican conference. His family name carries weight in Alaska politics. His grandfather, Nick Begich Sr., served in Congress in the 1970s.

The bill has attracted co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. On the Republican side, Representatives Warren Davidson of Ohio and Tom Emmer of Minnesota, both longstanding crypto advocates, signed on immediately. Davidson previously introduced legislation to limit SEC enforcement actions against token issuers. Emmer, the House Majority Whip, has been vocal about stablecoin regulation and the need to keep crypto innovation onshore.

On the Democratic side, Representative Ro Khanna of California and Representative Ritchie Torres of New York have signaled support. Khanna has argued that Bitcoin ownership is a financial inclusion issue, noting that communities underserved by traditional banking could benefit from access to a non-inflationary store of value. Torres, who represents parts of the Bronx, has framed digital assets as critical infrastructure for remittance corridors between the U.S. and Latin America.

Not everyone is enthusiastic. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called the reserve concept "reckless speculation with public funds" in a statement released after Trump's original executive order. Representative Brad Sherman of California, a longtime crypto skeptic, described Begich's bill as "a solution in search of a problem." Sherman has repeatedly argued that Bitcoin's primary use case is evading sanctions and facilitating illicit finance, a claim that chain analysis data consistently undermines, given that illicit transactions accounted for less than 0.5% of total Bitcoin volume in 2024 according to Chainalysis.

The Sound Money Argument

The case for a strategic bitcoin reserve rests on a simple observation: the U.S. dollar is losing purchasing power at a predictable rate, and the Federal Reserve has no mandate, or incentive, to stop that process. The Consumer Price Index has risen roughly 25% since January 2020. The national debt exceeded $36 trillion in early 2026. Interest payments on that debt now consume more than $1 trillion annually, exceeding the entire defense budget.

Bitcoin offers a credible alternative for preserving sovereign wealth precisely because no central bank controls its supply. The protocol caps issuance at 21 million coins. The fourth halving in April 2024 reduced the block subsidy to 3.125 BTC, pushing Bitcoin's annual inflation rate below 1%. By roughly 2028, after the next halving, that rate will fall below 0.5%, making Bitcoin harder money than gold in terms of stock-to-flow ratio.

From an Austrian economics perspective, the accumulation of bitcoin by the U.S. Treasury represents an implicit acknowledgment that fiat money fails as a long-term store of value. Friedrich Hayek argued in "The Denationalisation of Money" that governments should not hold monopolies over currency issuance. A strategic bitcoin reserve does not denationalize the dollar. But it hedges against the dollar's structural decline, and it does so using an asset that no government, including the U.S. government, can print into oblivion.

Critics will object that governments should not speculate in volatile assets. This misses the point. Holding bitcoin is not speculation. Holding dollars, an asset guaranteed to lose value over time by the explicit policy of the institution that creates them, is the actual speculative bet. The question is not whether bitcoin is volatile in the short term. The question is whether, over a 10 or 20-year horizon, a fixed-supply digital commodity will outperform a currency whose supply grows by 6% to 8% per year.

International Context and the Reserve Race

The United States is not acting in a vacuum. El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021 and has accumulated over 6,000 BTC in its national treasury. Bhutan's sovereign wealth fund has been mining Bitcoin using hydroelectric power since at least 2023. The Czech National Bank announced in early 2025 that it would explore allocating up to 5% of its reserves to Bitcoin. Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund disclosed a position in spot Bitcoin ETFs worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

If the U.S. fails to codify its bitcoin holdings, it risks falling behind. China holds an estimated 190,000 BTC seized from the PlusToken Ponzi scheme and other enforcement actions. Beijing has not publicly stated its intentions for those holdings. A liquidation would pressure prices. A strategic hold would signal that even the Chinese Communist Party recognizes Bitcoin's monetary properties.

Russia, under heavy international sanctions, has shown increasing interest in using Bitcoin for cross-border energy trade. The Russian central bank authorized certain financial institutions to offer bitcoin trading services in late 2024. If Russia builds a shadow reserve of Bitcoin to circumvent dollar-denominated sanctions, the U.S. has every strategic incentive to hold more, not less.

The geopolitical dimension transforms the debate from a financial curiosity into a national security question. Bitcoin is the first neutral monetary network in history. It does not respect borders, sanctions, or central bank policies. The nations that accumulate it early will hold disproportionate influence over the monetary system of the next century.

Legislative Path Forward

The bill faces a crowded calendar. The House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Representative French Hill of Arkansas, has prioritized stablecoin legislation and market structure reform for the current session. The GENIUS Act, which would create a federal licensing framework for stablecoin issuers, passed the Senate in May 2025 and is moving through House committees. The FIT21 market structure bill, which would clarify SEC and CFTC jurisdiction over digital assets, remains a priority.

Begich's Bitcoin reserve bill could be attached as an amendment to either of those packages, which would give it a faster path to a floor vote. Alternatively, it could move as a standalone bill through the Financial Services Committee, though that would require scheduling a hearing and markup, a process that could take months.

The Senate presents additional complications. While Lummis remains a vocal advocate, she would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the upper chamber. A reconciliation vehicle, which requires only a simple majority, is theoretically possible if the bill can be scored as budget-neutral, which the proof-of-reserves and seized-asset provisions are designed to enable.

Industry lobbying will play a role. The Bitcoin Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, has been briefing congressional offices on reserve policy since 2024. Coinbase, the largest U.S. exchange, publicly endorsed the concept in a letter to Congress in early 2026. The Bitcoin Mining Council, representing roughly 50% of North American hash rate, has argued that a federal reserve creates demand-side certainty that supports long-term investment in domestic mining infrastructure.

What to Watch

Three developments will determine whether this bill becomes law.

First, watch the committee assignment. If French Hill schedules a hearing before the August recess, the bill has momentum. If it languishes without a hearing through the summer, it likely becomes a messaging vehicle rather than active legislation.

Second, monitor the Bitcoin price. Legislators respond to constituents, and an estimated 50 million Americans now hold some form of digital asset. If Bitcoin moves toward $150,000 in 2026, the political cost of opposing a reserve rises sharply. If prices decline, skeptics like Sherman and Warren gain rhetorical ammunition.

Third, track international moves. If a G7 nation, Japan, the UK, or Germany, announces a formal reserve allocation before the U.S. acts legislatively, the competitive pressure on Congress intensifies dramatically. The Bank of Japan's exploratory committee on digital reserve assets, formed in late 2025, reports its findings in the third quarter of 2026.

The strategic bitcoin reserve is no longer a fringe proposal. It is federal policy by executive order, endorsed by both a Republican president and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The question is whether Congress will make it permanent or leave it vulnerable to the next election cycle. For sound money advocates, the answer should be obvious. For legislators, the calculus is more complicated, but the direction of travel is clear.

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Source: Bitcoin Magazine