Patrick Witt, the White House advisor on digital assets, announced at Consensus Miami that an announcement regarding the strategic Bitcoin reserve will follow in the coming weeks. According to him, federal agencies have been conducting an inventory and centralizing crypto assets for several months already.
Witt said that in some agencies, cold wallets were literally stored in desk drawers. As an argument in favor of centralization, he cited the hacking of U.S. Marshals Service wallets, which resulted in the theft of over $60 million at the end of 2025.
Witt declined to disclose the size of the federal crypto reserves, explaining that first, “order needs to be established.” He also clarified that not all confiscated assets automatically go into the reserve—funds from active cases must first go through a confiscation procedure and potentially be reimbursed to victims.
Legislation will be required to permanently establish the reserve—Witt mentioned Senator Lummis’ BITCOIN Act.