Patrick Witt: "U.S. halts sale of government-held bitcoin… would consider direct purchases if Congress approves"

The U.S. government has begun groundwork to build a strategic bitcoin reserve. It says it has halted indiscriminate sales of existing digital-asset holdings and moved to conduct a comprehensive audit and overhaul its management framework.

Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House Digital Assets Advisory Council, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance on the 13th (local time) that "the very first thing we did after the executive order was to determine the exact size of the digital assets held by the government," adding that "we took steps to prevent agencies from selling their holdings at will."

He noted that "under the previous administration, there were cases where some digital assets were effectively sold off at fire-sale prices," adding that "as a result, it's possible the government lost value worth tens of billions of dollars." He said that had the government held onto them instead of selling, they would have remained significant assets on the government's balance sheet.

The current administration is regularly consulting with agencies to review their digital-asset holdings. Witt said, "We're verifying accounting consistency across all digital assets stored in various wallets—not just bitcoin," adding that "we're conducting a full reconciliation of accounts."

Legislative efforts are also moving in parallel. In the Senate, the 'Bitcoin Act' introduced by Sen. Cynthia Lummis is pending, and the House is expected to introduce a new bill to complement it. The legislation would clarify authority to centrally manage and safeguard government-held digital assets and enable reserve holdings to be expanded in a budget-neutral manner.

On the possibility of the government purchasing bitcoin directly to expand the size of its strategic reserve, Witt left the door open. "If Congress allows it in the future, direct purchases would be possible, but it would have to go through the process of budget authorization," he said.