White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt said the Trump administration will 
announce new details on the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within “the next few 
weeks,” framing the update as both a policy milestone and a custody response 
after an alleged exploit involving digital assets held by the US Marshals 
Service. Speaking at Consensus 2026 in Miami on Wednesday, Witt said the 
administration’s work on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, or SBR, and the 
separate digital asset stockpile had been progressing largely out of public 
view. The next announcement, he indicated, will focus on “exactly the progress 
that’s been made and where we’re going from here.” Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve 
Heads Toward New Update President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 
March 2025 establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a US Digital Asset 
Stockpile, with the bitcoin reserve capitalized by BTC finally forfeited to 
the Treasury through criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. The non- 
bitcoin stockpile covers other forfeited digital assets under a separate 
framework. Related Reading: Bitcoin Breaks $80,000, But On-Chain Activity 
Signals A Silent Warning Witt tied the coming update directly to a recent 
security incident. “So, as many of the folks in this room may have seen, there 
was an exploit of certain assets that were held by the US Marshals just a 
month or two ago. We obviously started the work on the SBR, the digital asset 
stockpile, without thinking about that, but obviously thinking about we need 
to properly secure these assets. So it&#8217;s a case in point for why it was so 
necessary that the President established the SBR and that he instructed the 
agencies to take these assets very seriously and properly safeguard them.” He 
added that digital asset custody creates challenges that do not fit neatly 
into legacy government asset-management procedures. “Custody is unique for 
digital assets. So we&#8217;ve made a tremendous amount of progress that&#8217;s kind of 
happened in the background and we&#8217;ll be making an announcement in the next few 
weeks, you know, laying out exactly the progress that&#8217;s been made and where 
we&#8217;re going from here.” The exploit Witt referenced appears to be the alleged 
theft tied to John Daghita, also known online as “John” or “Lick.” The case 
became public after blockchain investigator ZachXBT linked the “John/Lick” 
persona to wallets moving funds connected to US government-controlled crypto 
addresses. TRM Labs later said Daghita was arrested in Saint Martin in a joint 
operation involving the French Gendarmerie and the FBI, with authorities 
alleging he stole cryptocurrency from wallets associated with the US Marshals 
Service. Related Reading: Bitcoin Seasonality Flashes Bullish May Signal After 
Two Green Months According to TRM’s summary, the investigation traced part of 
the activity to cryptocurrency seized in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex 
hack. TRM said approximately $24.9 million of the traced funds originated from 
a US government-controlled wallet, while ZachXBT alleged that Daghita stole 
more than $46 million in seized crypto assets by abusing access at CMDSS, his 
father’s company, which held a US Marshals Service contract. Notably, Witt had 
already previewed the update days earlier at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. 
Speaking on a panel at The Venetian Resort, he said the administration had 
spent months working through the legal interpretations needed to protect 
bitcoin on the government balance sheet after Trump’s executive order. “In the 
next few weeks, we’ll be making a big announcement,” Witt said there, adding 
that the administration believed it could take a “big step forward from the 
executive branch side” even before Congress acts. He also made clear at 
Bitcoin 2026 that legislation would still be needed to lock the policy in more 
permanently. That distinction is central: an executive-branch framework can 
shape custody and management now, but a statutory framework would be harder 
for a future administration to unwind. At press time, BTC traded at $81,530. 
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

US Bitcoin Reserve Plan Nears Major White House Update

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