Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirms Trump's push for US crypto leadership and strategic bitcoin reserve

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed President Donald Trump’s commitment to positioning the United States as a global leader in cryptocurrency innovation and continuing plans for a strategic bitcoin reserve during the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"We want to be the best regulatory regime for digital assets and creativity to spark innovation," Bessent said during a press conference in Davos on Tuesday when asked by journalist Christine Lee for an update on the U.S.'s bitcoin strategic reserve. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to retain the U.S. government's bitcoin holdings as a strategic asset and to look for "budget-neutral" strategies to expand this reserve.

Bessent declined to respond to a question about the $6 million worth of bitcoin forfeited by Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill as part of their guilty plea, which Bitcoin Magazine reported earlier this month may have been sold by the U.S. Marshall Service. Last week, top White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt said those bitcoins have not been liquidated, and therefore did not go against Trump's strategic bitcoin reserve executive order.

Trump signed the executive order in March 2025 for a strategic bitcoin reserve. It said that bitcoin in the reserve will initially come from funds forfeited as part of a criminal or civil asset forfeiture, and that bitcoin deposited into the reserve cannot be sold.

"The policy of this government is to add seized bitcoin to our digital asset reserve after the damages are done," he said. "So the bitcoin reserve, our view, was first you have to stop selling, which we have done, and then we can add the assets and asset forfeitures."

Bessent also referenced work being done in Washington D.C. to pass legislation that would regulate the crypto industry as a whole and said that Trump wants to bring "digital assets and innovation onshore to the U.S." Progress on passing crypto market structure legislation hit a roadbump last week after the Senate Banking Committee postponed its hearing to amend and vote on its version of the bill following disagreements over how to treat stablecoin rewards and after Coinbase withdrew its support.