Legal Quirks Slow U.S. Plans for a National Bitcoin Reserve

A White House-backed effort to assemble a U.S. government‑held Bitcoin stockpile is moving forward only haltingly after routine legal drafting uncovered unexpected statutory and jurisdictional constraints. Interagency teams at Treasury and the Justice Department report that the executive action directing a strategic Bitcoin reserve triggered detailed legal review once staff began specifying acquisition and custody language — a process that has slowed operational rollout rather than allowed immediate deployment. Agencies are debating which acquisition channels are lawful: some officials argue the reserve should be limited to in‑kind additions of Bitcoin seized in criminal forfeiture cases, while others are exploring budget‑neutral transfers or revaluation of existing noncash holdings and even whether market purchases could be authorized. That choice is decisive: restricting the pool to forfeited assets would make the reserve episodic and symbolic, whereas authorizing market buys would require new budgetary, accounting and conflict‑of‑interest safeguards and could have material market effects. Operationally, lawyers are also wrestling with custody and fiscal‑reporting questions — whether holdings should be administered as law‑enforcement property, a strategic asset managed by Treasury, or a hybrid construct — and the Office of Legal Counsel is expected to play a central role resolving vertical authority. The Justice Department has issued clarifications in recent days that eased short‑term market concern by confirming that certain high‑profile blockchain‑traced transfers, including around 57.5 BTC tied to the Samourai case that moved into a Coinbase Prime deposit point, were not liquidated and remain under federal custody. Public on‑chain trackers also show the U.S. now controls substantial quantities of Bitcoin from multiple past seizures, including a major October forfeiture linked to cross‑border investment fraud, a position that could enable growth of a reserve without immediate taxpayer outlays if agencies agree to hold seized coins in reserve. Still, interagency frictions persist because long‑standing forfeiture procedures, budgetary rules and executive‑branch directives do not neatly align. The episode has sharpened attention inside and outside government on coordination between Treasury, DOJ and Commerce, on-chain transparency that can be misread as suspicious transfers, and on the broader political debate over whether and how a state should hold fixed‑supply digital assets. For market participants, the immediate effect is muted: DOJ’s clarification reduces the risk of an abrupt government sell‑off, while the unresolved legal questions make large, predictable U.S. purchases unlikely in the near term. Internationally, the design choices the U.S. adopts — acquisition channels, custody model and disclosure practices — could influence other states considering sovereign crypto holdings. Officials say the initiative remains a priority, but they emphasize that legally defensible authority and interagency alignment are prerequisites for operational steps. The final framework will set precedent on state involvement with scarce digital assets and define how far federal financial experimentation can reach without new statutory or budgetary changes.