Donald Trump signs major new executive order establishing Bitcoin reserve worth around $18,000,000,000
US President Donald Trump has unveiled his new plans regarding cryptocurrency.
Trump wants to make the US the crypto capital of the world, and this new executive order may just help him achieve such a huge feat.
Titled ‘Establishment of the Stategic Bitcoin Reserve and United State Digital Asset Stockpile’, the order — signed yesterday (March 6) — states that having a stockpile of Bitcoin in particular creates a ‘strategic advantage’ for America.
Donald Trump has signed another executive order (Allison Robbert for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“The United States Government currently holds a significant amount of BTC, but has not implemented a policy to maximize BTC’s strategic position as a unique store of value in the global financial system,” the order goes on.
“Just as it is in our country’s interest to thoughtfully manage national ownership and control of any other resource, our Nation must harness, not limit, the power of digital assets for our prosperity.”
While the order doesn’t state how much Bitcoin the US allegedly has, White House Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks says that the government owns 200,000 coins. The market rate (at the time of writing), puts Bitcoin at over $90,000 USD per coin, meaning that America has around $18 billion worth of the popular cryptocurrency, which is often referred to as ‘digital gold’.
Apparently the US government owns 200,000 Bitcoins (Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Sacks does note that there’s never been an official audit, however, and added: “The [executive order] directs a full accounting of the federal government’s digital asset holdings.”
As to where this large sum of coins that’s in the newly-created reserve came from, Sacks says they were ‘forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings’.
While it reserve is currently worth around $18 billion, apparently the government has no plans to sell it and it will be ‘kept as a store of value’.