White Home crypto advisor Patrick Witt mentioned the Trump administration will announce new particulars on the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve inside “the following few weeks,” framing the replace as each a coverage milestone and a custody response after an alleged exploit involving digital belongings held by the US Marshals Service.
Talking at Consensus 2026 in Miami on Wednesday, Witt mentioned the administration’s work on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, or SBR, and the separate digital asset stockpile had been progressing largely out of public view. The following announcement, he indicated, will give attention to “precisely the progress that’s been made and the place we’re going from right here.”
Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve Heads Towards New Replace
President Donald Trump signed an govt order in March 2025 establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a US Digital Asset Stockpile, with the bitcoin reserve capitalized by BTC lastly forfeited to the Treasury via felony or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. The non-bitcoin stockpile covers different forfeited digital belongings below a separate framework.
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Witt tied the approaching replace on to a current safety incident. “So, as most of the people on this room might have seen, there was an exploit of sure belongings that had been held by the US Marshals only a month or two in the past. We clearly began the work on the SBR, the digital asset stockpile, with out enthusiastic about that, however clearly enthusiastic about we have to correctly safe these belongings. So it’s a working example for why it was so needed that the President established the SBR and that he instructed the companies to take these belongings very significantly and correctly safeguard them.”
He added that digital asset custody creates challenges that don’t match neatly into legacy authorities asset-management procedures. “Custody is exclusive for digital belongings. So we’ve made an incredible quantity of progress that’s form of occurred within the background and we’ll be making an announcement within the subsequent few weeks, you already know, laying out precisely the progress that’s been made and the place we’re going from right here.”
The exploit Witt referenced seems to be the alleged theft tied to John Daghita, additionally identified on-line as “John” or “Lick.” The case grew to become public after blockchain investigator ZachXBT linked the “John/Lick” persona to wallets shifting funds related to US government-controlled crypto addresses. TRM Labs later mentioned Daghita was arrested in Saint Martin in a joint operation involving the French Gendarmerie and the FBI, with authorities alleging he stole cryptocurrency from wallets related to the US Marshals Service.
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In keeping with TRM’s abstract, the investigation traced a part of the exercise to cryptocurrency seized in reference to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. TRM mentioned roughly $24.9 million of the traced funds originated from a US government-controlled pockets, whereas ZachXBT alleged that Daghita stole greater than $46 million in seized crypto belongings by abusing entry at CMDSS, his father’s firm, which held a US Marshals Service contract.
Notably, Witt had already previewed the replace days earlier at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. Talking on a panel at The Venetian Resort, he mentioned the administration had spent months working via the authorized interpretations wanted to guard bitcoin on the federal government steadiness sheet after Trump’s govt order. “Within the subsequent few weeks, we’ll be making a giant announcement,” Witt mentioned there, including that the administration believed it may take a “huge step ahead from the manager department aspect” even earlier than Congress acts.
He additionally made clear at Bitcoin 2026 that laws would nonetheless be wanted to lock the coverage in additional completely. That distinction is central: an executive-branch framework can form custody and administration now, however a statutory framework could be tougher for a future administration to unwind.
At press time, BTC traded at $81,530.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
