At a time when Bitcoin is gaining renewed political and institutional attention, David Sacks — recently appointed as the White House’s AI and crypto advisor — floated an eye-catching possibility: the United States government could potentially increase its Bitcoin holdings, but only under specific fiscal conditions.
Speaking during a candid fireside chat with Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss at the Bitcoin 2025 conference on May 27, Sacks explained that the current administration actually has the legal authority to buy more Bitcoin. However, he emphasized that any such move would have to be “budget-neutral,” meaning it couldn’t involve new taxes or contribute to the ballooning national debt.
“I’m not making any promises,” Sacks cautioned, but he didn’t shut the door, either. According to him, there is a legal pathway — thanks to a March 6 executive order — for the government to expand its crypto reserve, provided the financial logistics align.
How Would That Work?
Sacks outlined a potential scenario: if either the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Commerce can locate unused funds within existing federal programs — money that’s essentially just sitting idle — then those funds could be reallocated to buy more Bitcoin. But there’s a catch: high-level buy-in would be needed from leaders like Treasury Secretary Scott Besson or Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
“If they can figure out how to fund it without adding to the debt,” Sacks said, “then they are allowed to create those programs.” The executive order, he explained, already grants them the authority; the challenge lies in operationalizing it within existing budgetary constraints.
The US Already Has a Bitcoin War Chest
Most people aren’t aware of just how much Bitcoin the U.S. government already holds. As of April 2025, according to CoinGecko, Uncle Sam has roughly 198,012 BTC in its possession — an amount worth over $21 billion at current market prices.
These digital assets didn’t come from purchases but from law enforcement seizures, mostly from high-profile criminal investigations. One major chunk — 69,370 BTC — was confiscated from the notorious Silk Road marketplace in November 2020. Another 51,351 BTC came from a similar operation in March 2022. And in January of the same year, authorities took hold of 94,636 BTC linked to the Bitfinex hack after breaching the cloud storage of alleged hacker Ilya Lichtenstein, uncovering a file with thousands of wallet addresses and private keys.
The U.S. isn’t just sitting on this digital goldmine either. In March 2023, the government liquidated a portion of its holdings — offloading 9,861 BTC for a tidy $215.7 million. More recently, in January 2025, the Department of Justice secured approval to sell a massive batch of 198,109 BTC, although it’s unclear when or how those sales will unfold.
Policy Meets Politics
The idea of the U.S. government actively buying Bitcoin has always felt a bit like fantasy — something more fitting in crypto Twitter threads than actual policy debates. But David Sacks’ comments have injected a dose of real-world plausibility into that narrative.
Interestingly, this line of thinking echoes recent proposals by Republican lawmakers, including a headline-grabbing bill supported by Donald Trump that aims to create a 1 million BTC national reserve. If implemented, it would mark the largest government-backed Bitcoin acquisition in history — and it would signal a seismic shift in how the U.S. approaches digital assets as part of its financial strategy.
While Sacks made it clear that there’s no official plan on the table yet, his remarks underscore a growing openness within the federal apparatus toward treating Bitcoin not just as an asset to be seized and sold, but potentially as a strategic reserve.
