The White House is preparing an update on the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, with digital-assets official Patrick J. Witt saying the administration has made progress on the legal, operational and custody work needed to move the policy beyond its executive-order framework. In a May 17 interview with crypto investor and media host Scott Melker, Witt described the coming announcement as tied to implementation mechanics rather than offering details on any immediate open-market Bitcoin purchase program.
White House Prepares Bitcoin Reserve Update
Patrick J. Witt, a White House digital-assets official serving in the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, once again emphasized that said the administration has continued working on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve even as broader market-structure legislation has dominated policy attention. Witt said the reserve effort has been led in part by Harry Jung, his deputy, through an interagency process triggered by the executive order establishing the framework. “We never stopped working on it,” Witt told Melker. “But it was one of those things that clarity was dominating all the headlines, sucking up all the oxygen in the room.”
Witt framed the coming update as a step toward making the reserve legally and operationally durable. “We’ll have an announcement. And I wish I could say more at this time, but I think we’re still within the window that I gave myself,” he said. “It’s a breakthrough as far as getting everything in place legally sound, properly safeguarding the assets.” His comments follow earlier public signals at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas and Consensus 2026 in Miami, where he said an announcement on reserve progress was expected within weeks.
The March 2025 executive order created the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, using digital assets already forfeited to the federal government through criminal or civil proceedings. The framework treats Bitcoin placed into the reserve as a reserve asset and states that BTC deposited there “shall not be sold,” while allowing Treasury and Commerce to explore budget-neutral acquisition strategies that do not impose incremental taxpayer costs. Witt’s interview focused on how that framework is being translated into agency practice, including legal authority, coordination and asset safeguarding.
Legal and Custody Work Takes Center Stage
Witt said the executive order was only the beginning of the process, not the endpoint. “The executive order obviously tasked certain agencies to work this out. But that’s usually just a starting gun and then it’s like, all right, actually do the work,” he said. “What legal memos need to be drafted? What authorities do we have? Do we have the appropriate authorities?” He added that Jung had been “bird dogging” the process alongside Stephen Miller’s policy team, which Witt said is responsible for ensuring executive orders are followed through.
Custody and asset protection appear to be central to the pending update. Witt linked the work to concerns about safeguarding government-held digital assets, including what he described as theft involving some assets held by the U.S. Marshals Service. “The theft of assets from the U.S. Marshals for some of the tier two assets, if you follow that story, was really just kind of like a great proof point that we really need to take this seriously,” he said. “These assets have to be safeguarded. They are unique. It’s going to require the government to do this in a bit of a different way.”
Witt also emphasized that executive-order policy remains vulnerable unless Congress codifies it. Asked by Melker how reversible executive orders are under a future administration, Witt answered: “Very reversible. As we saw from Trump to Biden, back to Trump, there were a lot of executive orders.” He said the administration wants the reserve ultimately written into statute, pointing to Senator Cynthia Lummis’s BITCOIN Act work and Representative Nick Begich’s American Reserves Modernization Act as legislative vehicles intended to update and codify the president’s reserve framework.
Witt’s remarks indicate that the White House’s next Strategic Bitcoin Reserve update is likely to center on implementation: legal authority, custody standards, agency coordination and the treatment of forfeited Bitcoin already on the government balance sheet. He did not describe an immediate open-market buying program in the interview, and the larger question of long-term accumulation appears tied to whether Congress advances reserve legislation.
AI Transparency Note: This article was prepared with the assistance of an AI system based on the sources listed and was reviewed, edited, and approved by a human editor before publication. All quotes, data points, and factual claims are intended to be grounded in the cited source material; however, errors cannot be ruled out entirely.