{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://begich.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-congressman-nick-begich-introduces-bitcoin-act-establish-strategic", "ICYMI: Congressman Nick Begich Introduces The BITCOIN Act to Establish Strategic Bitcoin Reserve", "2025-03-13", "2025", "2025-03", "Republican", "House", "AK", "Nicholas J. Begich III", "B001323", "begich.house.gov", "begich", "https://begich.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 March 13, 2025 \u2013 In an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner, Congressman Nick Begich (R-AK) discussed the introduction of the Bitcoin Act of 2025 which establishes a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and would codify President Donald J. Trump\u2019s Executive Order, the Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile.\n\nBegich introduces bill to establish strategic bitcoin reserve\n\nBy: Zach Halaschak\n\nMarch 11, 2025\n\nRep. Nick Begich (R-AK) announced Tuesday that he is introducing legislation that establishes a strategic bitcoin reserve, an idea that has gained traction since President Donald Trump\u2019s victory.\n\nBegich announced the legislation during a Washington, D.C., conference hosted by the Bitcoin Policy Institute. The freshman congressman was joined by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who is sponsoring the bill, the BITCOIN Act, on the Senate side. She had previously introduced another iteration of the strategic reserve legislation last year.\n\nIn an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner ahead of the Tuesday announcement of the bitcoin reserve legislation, Begich said that the time is right to pass the legislation, with President Donald Trump is in office and Republicans controlling both chambers.\n\n\u201cI think what we\u2019ve seen over the last couple of months is a relatively unified Republican Party that recognizes that we have a generational window of opportunity to make the fundamental changes necessary for the federal government to work well for the American people again,\u201d he said in his congressional office.\n\nA strategic bitcoin reserve would be a U.S. reserve containing a large amount of the cryptocurrency. Notably, Trump has endorsed the idea of such a reserve and even signed an order this past week that would form a bitcoin reserve. But the reserve created by the Lummis-Begich legislation goes beyond the Trump order.\n\nTrump\u2019s order calls for all of the bitcoin seized through criminal and civil forfeitures to be consolidated into one reserve for the U.S. government to hold as a strategic asset. The BITCOIN Act would initiate a bitcoin purchase program with the goal of the U.S. acquiring a total stake of approximately 5% of total bitcoin supply \u2014 1 million bitcoins, worth about $80 billion in today\u2019s prices.\n\nThe bill directs the Treasury Department to purchase 200,000 bitcoins per year for five years in order to reach that goal.\n\nThe Treasury would be responsible for overseeing, auditing, and managing the bitcoin reserve funds. The legislation would establish a minimum holding period of 20 years for all government-held bitcoin, meaning that the Treasury wouldn\u2019t be able sell off those assets for two decades.\n\nBegich said that it is important that the reserve be strategic and a long-term play. Preventing the Treasury from selling those assets for 20 years would accomplish that goal.\n\n\u201cAny strategic reserve asset needs to be held long enough to be strategic,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so the United States government is not a day trader. We\u2019re interested in long-term, stable assets that provide a strategic advantage to the national balance sheet.\u201d\n\nWhile Trump signed the order to establish such a reserve, the BITCOIN Act goes well beyond the bounds of an executive order by enshrining it in law.\n\n\u201cWhat this bill does is it establishes the strategic Bitcoin reserve in law, long-term,\u201d Begich said. \u201cSo what a president can do in four years, a Congress can do permanently.\u201d\n\nThe cost of the bitcoin purchase program in the Lummis-Begich legislation intends to be offset by reducing the discretionary surplus fund of the Federal Reserve. It allocates $6 billion per year from Fed remittances to fund purchases, and requires the Fed to update gold certificate values and remit additional funds to the Treasury to help finance bitcoin purchases.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T00:15:27Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://begich.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-congressman-nick-begich-introduces-bitcoin-act-establish-strategic"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5040759462863207, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}