Crypto czar Sacks says US could possibly ‘acquire more Bitcoin’

White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks says the US could buy more Bitcoin if the government can fund the purchase in a “budget-neutral” way without a tax or adding to the growing national debt.

Sacks told Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss during a May 27 fireside chat at the Bitcoin 2025 conference that while he “can’t promise anything,” a pathway does exist for the government to buy more Bitcoin (BTC).

However, it would require convincing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or Treasury Secretary Scott Besson to OK the buy and fund it “without a new tax or adding to the debt,” Sacks said, adding that “maybe by finding the money from some other program that’s not using it — then we could potentially acquire more Bitcoin.”

“The question is, can we get either the Treasury Department or the Commerce Department to get excited about that because if they do and they can figure out how to fund it, they actually do have presidential authorization,” Sacks said.

The March 6 executive order authorizing the creation of a crypto reserve states it will hold any Bitcoin forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture.

Sacks noted part of the executive order “allows the government to purchase more”  if it’s “done in a budget-neutral” way.

“Specifically, if either the Commerce Department or the Treasury Department can figure out how to fund it without adding to the debt, then they are allowed to create those programs,” he said.

The US holds approximately 198,012 Bitcoin, according to an April report from CoinGecko, worth over $21 billion at current prices.

Related: Trump supports bill to buy 1 million BTC — Senator Lummis

Most of its holdings came from two seizures connected to the online marketplace Silk Road, one in November 2020 that netted 69,370 Bitcoin, and another in March 2022 that saw authorities seize 51,351 Bitcoin.

The US also seized 94,636 Bitcoin from Bitfinex hacker Ilya Lichtenstein on Jan. 31, 2022, after authorities hacked into his cloud storage account, which contained a file holding around 2,000 crypto wallet addresses and corresponding private keys.

In January, the US Department of Justice received the green light to sell 198,109 Bitcoin. Previously, the government sold a small portion of its holdings in March 2023, when it offloaded 9,861 Bitcoin for $215.7 million. 

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