Bitcoin prices are wavering. But US policy is accelerating. Bitcoin, long regarded by markets as a risk asset, is moving into the domain of government policy assets.
The most notable recent development is the American Reserve Asset Modernization Act, introduced in the House in May. The bill would establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within the Treasury Department, with non-bitcoin digital assets managed in a separate stockpile. Eligible bitcoin would consist of holdings the federal government has acquired through criminal or civil forfeiture proceedings or civil penalties.
The bill's significance lies in placing bitcoin within the national asset management framework. Bitcoin has no issuer, a fixed supply, and no dependence on any company's business performance. For the United States to hold bitcoin is to incorporate a non-sovereign digital scarcity asset as a supplementary holding on the national balance sheet.
Bitcoin placed in the strategic reserve would be barred from sale, exchange, auction, use as collateral, or disposal for at least 20 years. Even after that period, only a recommendation to sell up to 10 percent every two years would be permitted. The design reclassifies bitcoin previously managed as seized assets into a long-term reserve holding.
The bill would require the Treasury to publish quarterly reserve reports and cryptographically verify its holdings, transaction records, and private key controls. It also mandates oversight by an independent third-party auditor and the Government Accountability Office. Once bitcoin becomes a national asset, custody alone is insufficient — public verification, accounting, auditing, and accountability structures become necessary as well.
Federal agencies would be required to report to the Treasury any bitcoin and other digital assets they hold, have seized, or control, and to transfer those holdings once the reserve and stockpile are operational. The bill also creates a structure allowing state governments to hold bitcoin in segregated accounts within the strategic reserve. Ownership would remain with the states, which would also retain rights to any assets arising from forks or airdrops. The federal reserve could thus expand into a shared custody infrastructure for state-held bitcoin.
The bill positions bitcoin as a benchmark asset within a broader digital asset portfolio. Non-bitcoin digital assets would be managed in a separate stockpile, which the Treasury could sell, exchange, or convert — with proceeds directed toward expanding the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve or reducing the national debt. Additional acquisitions would be considered under a budget-neutral principle, without new borrowing, new taxes, or deficit spending. US bitcoin policy is shifting from a race to accumulate toward building a national asset management framework.
The structural changes this creates for the broader ecosystem are significant. The reserve bill would develop markets for bitcoin custody, professional custodianship, public auditing, and proof-of-reserve services, while also creating markets for the disposal and conversion of other digital assets. At the same time, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's decision to allow perpetual bitcoin futures listings on US-regulated exchanges is bringing price discovery, hedging, and leveraged trading under US regulatory jurisdiction. The bitcoin ecosystem is expanding beyond spot trading into public holdings, institutional custody, proof-of-reserve, derivatives, collateral and hedging, and institutional risk management markets.
South Korea faces the same questions. The National Tax Service this year selected a service provider to manage the custody of seized virtual assets and has begun related operations. But the country needs to go beyond agency-level custody arrangements and design an integrated framework covering the classification, custody, accounting, auditing, and disposal of digitally held national assets. The US moves represent an experiment in shifting bitcoin from a market asset to a policy asset. South Korea must now build its own national digital asset management framework.
Kim Jong-seung is CEO of Xcrypton.
kyoung@heraldcorp.com
