Lummis: funding for US Bitcoin reserve can start anytime
Senator Cynthia Lummis said on X that acquiring funds for a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) “can start anytime,” crediting an order signed earlier this year by President Donald Trump.
The Wyoming Republican added that formal legislation is moving slowly, but argued the SBR and the BITCOIN Act “make sense.” Her comments revived speculation over how – and how soon – Washington could begin accumulating BTC.
Lummis was responding to a clip shared by Jeff Park of ProCap BTC, who floated a thought experiment: use the US government’s large paper gains on gold (held on the books at an old statutory price) to finance BTC exposure as a long‑dated “call option.”
Park’s point, framed as a hypothetical, is that even a small portion of those unrealized gains could be leveraged into meaningful Bitcoin buys relative to market size. It’s an argument, not a policy – but it’s the kind of idea now being debated in public.
What an SBR looks like in practice is still taking shape. A government fact sheet says the reserve would start with BTC seized in civil or criminal cases and already controlled by the US Treasury. Additional coins could be acquired via “budget‑neutral” channels that do not add costs to taxpayers, though the mechanisms were not specified. That ambiguity is why markets are parsing every hint from lawmakers and the administration.
The timeline remains uncertain. It has been months since the order establishing the reserve framework, but there’s no formal schedule for purchases or allocations. Lummis’ message suggests the executive branch has the runway to begin sourcing funds even as Congress works on the BITCOIN Act, leaving both administrative and legislative tracks moving at different speeds. Prominent voices in the industry are watching for a landmark moment: an explicit buy program.
Investor Anthony Pompliano told CNBC that creating the reserve with seized BTC was a starting step; the “main dish,” in his words, would be the U.S. announcing net new purchases. That prospect – still unconfirmed – would represent a new, price‑insensitive demand source and a political signal about Bitcoin’s role in US reserves.
For now, the signal from Lummis is narrow but notable. Funding pathways exist, at least in principle, and supporters in Congress intend to keep pushing statutory backing. The open questions are operational: where the money comes from, which agency executes, how purchases are disclosed, and how any program interacts with existing auction processes for seized coins.
For crypto investors, the policy track matters because official buying, if it happens, could change the flow picture around BTC. It also raises the stakes for custody, transparency and governance: who holds keys, what reporting looks like, and how sales would be authorized in the future. Until those details are public, the SBR remains a live idea with early scaffolding – and a timeline the market will continue to read between the lines.
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