The U.S. Bitcoin reserve has gone 16 months without buying

The two most famous Bitcoin reserves in the world are operating in the exact opposite way of what was promised. The American State, which announced it would accumulate Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, has not purchased a single coin on the open market in the sixteen months since the executive order — and it cannot even manage to bring the Bitcoin it already confiscated under a single custodian. The company that owns the most Bitcoin on the planet, which swore never to sell, has recurrently liquidated positions during 2026 to cover dividends. This article deconstructs the state reserve deadlock: how much Bitcoin Washington actually holds (a figure no one knows with precision), why it is split between three agencies with incompatible legal authorities, which two departments are fighting for control, and what the ARMA (American Reserve Modernization Act) law, currently dormant in a House committee, proposes. The bottleneck is bureaucratic and legal: incompatible forfeiture statutes and a jurisdictional dispute between departments.

What did the U.S. promise with its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and what has it actually bought?

On March 6, 2025, the White House established the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve by executive order, defined as a "long-term national asset" with a mandate not to sell the Bitcoin deposited within it. The political narrative was unequivocal: the United States was going to treat Bitcoin like the gold in Fort Knox, accumulating it indefinitely. Sixteen months later, on July 6, 2026, the White House itself confirmed to Bloomberg that it is still "actively structuring" that reserve. The announcement that the reserve is operational—expected since late 2025—has not arrived.

The data point that summarizes the gap: as of July 14, 2026, no open-market purchase of Bitcoin by the federal government has been confirmed. Not one. All the Bitcoin Washington controls arrived via judicial forfeiture—seizures from criminals—not through deliberate acquisition. The "strategic" reserve is, to date, an inventory of confiscated goods waiting for someone to decide what to do with them. The executive order contemplated "budget-neutral" mechanisms to accumulate more Bitcoin at no cost to the taxpayer, but none have been activated.

How much Bitcoin does the American State hold and why does no one know the exact figure?

The most recent figure is 328,372 BTC, valued at approximately $25 billion, published by Bloomberg in February 2026, which would make the United States the largest known state holder of Bitcoin in the world. However, that figure is an estimate without an official audit behind it. An on-chain analysis snapshot from April 2025 placed holdings at around 198,000 BTC; the difference with the Bloomberg figure primarily reflects new seizures incorporated since then and different methodologies for attributing public wallets to the government. The absence of a single, official figure is the first symptom of the problem: as of July 14, 2026, the Treasury has not published any consolidated balance sheet of its Bitcoin holdings.

The origin of this Bitcoin explains the dispersion. The largest seizures come from landmark cases: the 69,370 BTC tied to the Silk Road black market and seized from an anonymous hacker ("Individual X") in 2020, whose sale for approximately $6.5 billion was authorized by Federal Judge Richard Seeborg—a liquidation that directly clashes with the reserve's own non-sale mandate; the 50,676 BTC from the James Zhong case, forfeited between 2021 and 2022 valued at over $3.36 billion at the time, according to the Department of Justice; and a portion of the Bitcoin recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Each case went through a different court, with a different legal authority and under the custody of a different agency.

The Bitfinex case illustrates why the total figure is slippery. Of the nearly 120,000 BTC stolen in that 2016 hack and recovered by authorities, the majority does not join the reserve: by court ruling, it is destined to return funds to the platform and its users, not to federal coffers. In other words, a large part of the Bitcoin sometimes counted as "government property" is legally committed to third parties. Who the final owner of each seized coin is determines whether it can join the reserve: what is committed to victims or platforms remains out of the Treasury's reach.

Who holds the government's Bitcoin: DOJ, IRS, or US Marshals?

Confiscated Bitcoin is not in a single Treasury wallet: it is spread across three agencies, each operating under a different federal statute. Merging them into a unified reserve requires determining which agency has the legal authority to transfer what, and whether that transfer requires an Act of Congress; moving private keys from one server to another is the trivial part.

The difference between "final forfeiture" and "pending forfeiture" is what paralyzes the process. The Bitcoin held by the US Marshals Service has already passed through sentencing and, by historical rule, its destination is auction—the opposite of a permanent reserve. What the DOJ holds is subject to appeals that may force its return. And the IRS holdings respond to tax logic, not sovereign reserve logic. Bringing them together requires answering three legal questions that, as of July 14, 2026, remain open: which agency can move what, whether Congressional authorization is needed, and how to securely custody private keys in an administration designed to store gold in vaults and move dollars via bank transfer.

Why can't the reserve be merged without going through Congress?

The short answer is an elementary principle of American administrative law: an executive order cannot repeal a law passed by Congress. Forfeiture statutes (Titles 18 and 26 of the U.S. Code) determine what is done with seized assets, and several of them point toward liquidation or victim restitution, not indefinite retention. The President signing an order saying "this is now a national reserve" does not rewrite those statutes. This is why, according to Bloomberg, government legal services are reviewing whether the DOJ even has the legal power to transfer its Bitcoin to the Treasury.

The journey of a seized coin until it can join the reserve follows a fixed legal sequence, and each step can stall it:

1. Seizure: A federal agency (FBI, IRS-CI, Secret Service) takes control of the keys during a criminal investigation; the Bitcoin remains in protective custody, without a definitive owner.
2. Judicial Forfeiture: A judge decrees the forfeiture—criminal or civil—when the case is resolved; until then, the DOJ cannot dispose of the asset.
3. Appeals and Claims: The ruling may order funds returned to victims or platforms, as is the case with most of the Bitfinex Bitcoin.
4. Final Forfeiture: The asset passes to the US Marshals Service, whose historical mandate points toward auction.
5. Transfer to Treasury: The final step that currently lacks a clear statutory basis and which no coin has completed as of July 14, 2026.

There is a deeper layer: it is being evaluated whether the government can legally hold Bitcoin indefinitely, given its price volatility. An asset that can drop 30% in weeks fits poorly with the rules governing the management of public property. The practical consequence is that the clean path—the only one that would shield the reserve against a change in administration or a legal challenge—is an Act of Congress to codify it. And that law exists, but it is stuck.

Which departments are fighting for control: Treasury or Commerce?

Bloomberg reported on July 6 that several departments are vying for control of the reserve, without identifying them; subsequent reports from July 2026 put names to the dispute: the Department of the Treasury versus the Department of Commerce to lead the future unified reserve. The Treasury is the natural custodian designated by the executive order; Commerce claims a role in managing the asset. The sign that the dispute has escalated beyond usual bureaucratic friction: the Office of Legal Counsel (the Department of Justice legal office that issues binding opinions for the Executive) has stepped in to mediate between both departments.

The OLC's intervention means the conflict is no longer about who manages a budget, but about who has the legal competence to do so—genuinely disputed territory. Until that mediation concludes, no agency has formal control of the reserve, and the Bitcoin remains exactly where it was: split between the Marshals Service, the DOJ, and the IRS.

What does the ARMA law propose and how does it differ from the BITCOIN Act?

The American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 (H.R. 8957), introduced in the House of Representatives on May 21, 2026, by Representative Nick Begich (Alaska) with bipartisan cosponsorship from Democrat Jared Golden (Maine), does not order the purchase of a single coin. Its objective is to address the deadlock described in previous sections: to consolidate under the Treasury the Bitcoin already confiscated with final forfeiture, impose a minimum twenty-year lock-up on what is deposited, and require quarterly proof of reserves (cryptographic verification of holdings). Regarding future acquisitions, it limits itself to ordering the study of budget-neutral mechanisms—among them, the revaluation of Federal Reserve gold certificates—without authorizing any purchase. The full text can be consulted at Congress.gov and the official note from its sponsor on the House website.

The bill that does set purchase figures is different: the BITCOIN Act (S.954), pushed in the Senate since 2025 by Senator Cynthia Lummis, which would order the acquisition of up to 200,000 BTC per year for five years until accumulating one million Bitcoin under federal custody; its text can be read at Congress.gov. These are two distinct and complementary legislative vehicles: ARMA would resolve the legal paralysis of what is already confiscated, and the BITCOIN Act would add the massive purchase that the executive order cannot mandate on its own.

Neither of the two is law as of July 14, 2026. ARMA was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and, according to the Congressional record, had no hearings scheduled as of the end of June 2026; the BITCOIN Act has also not left committee in the Senate. What would the reserve gain if ARMA were to succeed? Exactly what it lacks today: a single custodian with a statutory basis, a twenty-year lock, and a quarterly public verification of how much Bitcoin there is.

Why is the state reserve behaving the opposite of Strategy?

The inverted symmetry between the two largest Bitcoin reserves is what makes this case so instructive. On one hand, the American state promised to accumulate and not sell; in practice, it does not buy and cannot even consolidate what it has confiscated. On the other, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is the company that holds the most Bitcoin in the world, and its founder turned "never sell" into a doctrine; however, in 2026, the company has had to sell Bitcoin recurrently to meet the dividends of its preferred shares. The most recent snapshot confirms the predicament without the sale: on July 13, the company declared a week with no changes in its Bitcoin holdings while accumulating a cushion of about 3,000 million dollars in cash —raised by selling shares, not coins— precisely to cover those dividends. The public reserve is rigid due to bureaucratic incapacity; the corporate reserve is flexible due to financial obligation. Both fail to live up to their founding narrative, each at the opposite extreme.

The specific mechanism of Strategy's sales—the trilemma between paying dividends, sustaining the stock price, and not diluting shareholders—is analyzed in detail in our piece on the Saylor trilemma from July 7. And the general thesis of why governments and companies pursue Bitcoin as a sovereign reserve, with its contradictions, is developed in Bitcoin as a sovereign reserve asset. What is relevant here is the shared pattern: publicly committing to a holding policy is easy; sustaining it against bureaucracy or the treasury is much harder.

What remains pending as of July 14, 2026, and what should be watched?

The state of affairs is a snapshot of paralysis with three moving focal points. First, the OLC mediation between Treasury and Commerce: its resolution will determine which agency assumes control and whether the Executive believes it has a legal basis to act without Congress. Second, the progress of ARMA: if the Financial Services Committee calls hearings, the reserve would move from existing by decree to existing by law, which is much harder to reverse. Third, any sign of a first open-market purchase—which, as of today, would still be the number zero turning into one.

For the observer, the operational lesson is that Bitcoin on state and corporate balance sheets does not behave like gold in a vault. Its management depends on statutes, legal opinions, and cash flows that can force decisions contrary to the official narrative. Anyone following institutional Bitcoin would do well to watch the filings rather than the tweets: who holds custody, under what law, and with what obligation to sell. That is the ground where it is decided whether a reserve is strategic or merely declarative. In parallel, it is worth following the flows of Bitcoin ETFs, which in June 2026 marked record outflows—we covered this in record Bitcoin ETF outflows in June 2026—because private institutional demand is the other side of the same board.

Sources and links: Bloomberg — Trump Bitcoin Reserve Faces Hurdles · Congress.gov — H.R. 8957 (ARMA) · Rep. Nick Begich — press release · Department of Justice — Silk Road seizure · Cryptonews — Treasury vs Commerce dispute · Decrypt — authorized sale of Silk Road Bitcoin