Speaking at the Digital Assets Summit on March 18, Robert “Bo” Hines, a 29-year-old Yale graduate and former college football player, underscored the Trump administration’s unwavering commitment to Bitcoin. Hines, who serves as Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, alongside David Sacks—designated as the “Crypto Czar”—elaborated on the significance of the newly formed US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) and the government’s broader strategy to secure Bitcoin holdings.
“As Much Bitcoin As We Can Get”
“We delivered on the president’s promises that he made on the campaign trail,” Hines remarked at the summit, emphasizing President Trump’s directive to create the SBR. “You know, the president was adamant about creating the SBR. We wanted to make sure that we did it right in a way that respected Bitcoin for being so unique, and also gave credence to innovation and other spaces in the digital asset world.”
Pointing to Bitcoin’s unique qualities and the administration’s rationale behind treating it as a commodity rather than a security, Hines stated: “For us here, we look at Bitcoin. It’s not a security, it’s a commodity. It has intrinsic stored value that’s traditionally accepted. It has, as David [Sacks] likes to describe, the immaculate conception. There’s no issuer. And, you know, that’s why, as you saw in the executive order, we compared this to digital gold.”
He went on to highlight the administration’s stance on government-held Bitcoin and the focus on building a national reserve of the asset: “It’s something that’s imperative for the United States to have, retain, continue to build on. […] We talked about ways of acquiring more Bitcoin in budget neutral ways that won’t cost the taxpayer a dime. […] I think it’s high time that our president started accumulating assets for the American people, which is what President Trump is doing, rather than taking it away.”
Asked how much Bitcoin the government intends to acquire, Hines invoked an analogy to gold reserves: “I’ve been asked all the time, it’s like, how much do you want? I said, well, that’s like asking a country, how much gold do you want? Right. I mean, as much as we can get.”
Hines’s remarks come nearly two weeks after President Trump signed an executive order on March 6 that formally created the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The order repurposes any BTC obtained via forfeitures and seizures, ensuring that it remains under direct government control as a long-term reserve. The text of the order notes that, while the United States Government already holds “a significant amount of BTC,” there has been no definitive policy in place to leverage Bitcoin’s position as a “unique store of value in the global financial system.”
Under the executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury is mandated to establish an office that will administer the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. All BTC finally forfeited in criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings and not otherwise allocated by law must be transferred into the reserve. The order further stipulates that: “Government BTC deposited into the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve shall not be sold and shall be maintained as reserve assets of the United States utilized to meet governmental objectives in accordance with applicable law.”
In addition, the Treasury and Commerce Departments must devise “strategies for acquiring additional Government BTC,” provided the methods remain “budget neutral and do not impose incremental costs on United States taxpayers.”
The establishment of the SBR has already prompted further legislative initiatives. US Representative Byron Donalds introduced a bill that, if passed, would codify President Trump’s directive into law, bolstering its resilience under future administrations. Meanwhile, Senator Cynthia Lummis and Congressman Nick Begich have reintroduced the “Bitcoin Act,” a separate legislative proposal calling for the purchase of 200,000 BTC per year over the next five years (totaling 1 million BTC) and stipulating that the coins be held for a minimum of two decades.
At press time, BTC traded at $83,254.
