Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve Plan Hits Hurdle After Supreme Court Declines to Hear Silk Road Case
Date: 2024-10-09 Author: Henry Casey Categories: BUSINESS
The ruling opens the way for a potential U.S. government sale of bitcoin, which could impact former President Donald Trump’s promise to create a national bitcoin reserve.
“I am declaring that if elected, it will be the policy of my government, the United States of America, to retain 100% of all bitcoin that the U.S. government currently holds or acquires in the future,” Trump said earlier this year at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.
The U.S. government is now likely to sell its 69,370 bitcoins, complicating Trump’s plans to hold on to a significant portion of the cryptocurrency confiscated from criminals. While that’s not the entirety of the government’s holdings — the government is thought to own 1% of all bitcoins in circulation — it’s still a significant amount. There are also concerns that crypto markets could see a drop in bitcoin prices if there’s a quick sell-off.
At the Libertarian Party National Convention, Trump also promised to free Silk Road founder Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life without parole by the Justice Department for his role in running Silk Road, which primarily used bitcoin. The promise to “free Ross” has long been a pipe dream for the largely libertarian Bitcoin community, which views the government’s actions against Ulbricht as disproportionate and overly harsh. Last week, Trump tweeted in all caps that he would “SAVE ROSS ULBRICHT!” Silk Road founder has been in prison for 12 years.
Over the summer, the US government handed over more than $2 billion in cryptocurrency confiscated from the Silk Road project, just 48 hours after Trump unveiled his plan not to sell the government's bitcoin.
