White House digital-assets adviser Patrick Witt cited a recent exploit involving assets held by the U.S. Marshals as proof federal crypto holdings need safeguarding.
Updated May 6, 2026, 9:48 p.m. Published May 6, 2026, 9:44 p.m. 2 min read
An announcement about the long-anticipated U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) is coming “in the next few weeks,” Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, told CoinDesk’s Consensus Miami conference on Wednesday.
The federal effort to inventory, centralize and secure U.S.-held bitcoin BTC$81,066.72 and other digital assets has been running in the background for months, Witt said. Following President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for bitcoin and other crypto assets to be set aside in long-term holdings, the White House halted what Witt characterized as “fire sale” liquidations under the previous administration and started auditing what crypto each agency was holding.
“We’ve heard stories and confirmed some of them of cold wallets that were being stored in drawers of desks in various agencies,” he said.
Witt cited a recent exploit involving assets held by the U.S. Marshals Service as a motivating proof point for centralization. Bloomberg reported in January that the Marshals Service was investigating a possible hack of U.S. government digital-asset accounts, after on-chain investigator ZachXBT claimed a hacker stole more than $60 million in late 2025, including funds from government seizure wallets.
“It’s a case in point for why it was so necessary that the president established the SBR, and that he instructed the agencies to take these assets very seriously and properly safeguard them,” Witt said. “Custody is unique for digital assets.”
Witt declined to disclose how much bitcoin or other crypto the federal government currently holds.
“Number one is we want to get our own house in order. We want to properly safeguard, custody these assets before we discuss any details around it,” he said. He suggested the upcoming announcement would address some of the open questions on size and structure, but said he did not want to “front run any of the other principals involved.”
He also clarified that the reserve will not absorb every newly seized asset automatically. Crypto seized in active legal proceedings sits in pending status until forfeiture is finalized, he said, with assets potentially returned to victims through restitution before being moved to the bitcoin reserve or the separate stockpile anticipated for other crypto assets.
On the legal underpinnings, Witt said much of the staff work has gone into general-counsel-level questions about which authorities allow agencies to hold the assets, for how long and whether they are subject to congressional clawback.
“This really hadn’t been explored until the president signed the executive order,” he said.
Codification will need to follow through Congress, Witt said, citing Sen. Cynthia Lummis’s BITCOIN Act in the Senate and Rep. Nick Begich’s American Reserves Modernization Act, a rebranded update of the same bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“It always needs to be followed up with proper legislation,” Witt said.
The likely need for a legislative underpinning to the formation of the bitcoin reserve has been a major constraint in this process. It’s unclear when Congress will find the bandwidth and drive to push through a reserve bill.
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