US Treasury Is Building a Bitcoin Custody Plan and Recounting Government Holdings

The US Treasury is putting together a proper custody setup for the Bitcoin the government already holds. That's according to Patrick Witt, the former executive director of the White House crypto council, in an interview posted November 10 and reported this week. Agencies are also doing a second count of how much Bitcoin they actually have, because the first round of numbers didn't line up.

Updated November 13, 2026, 1:50pm ET. Live prices: our crypto page.

Related: Bitcoin Drops to $61,946, Lowest Since July, Down 14% in a Week · Bitcoin Falls Below $70,000 and Ether Under $2,000 as $1.3B+ in Liquidations Hit Crypto

The short version

What Witt said

Witt talked about it on the What Bitcoin Did podcast. The gist: before anyone can even talk about buying more Bitcoin, the government needs to know exactly what it has and keep it somewhere safe. Sounds obvious. Apparently it wasn't. Wu Blockchain's summary of the interview has him saying some agencies used to keep cold wallets in drawers. Not a vault. A drawer.

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So the Treasury is building a framework for holding the coins. Witt said it may combine two ways of doing it. Self-custody means the government holds the private keys itself. Third-party custody means a specialist outside company holds the keys on the government's behalf. Anyone who's read The Bitcoin Standard knows the old line, not your keys, not your coins. Mixing the two is basically not putting all the eggs in one basket.

The second review is the other half. Agencies already had to count their Bitcoin once, after the March 6, 2025 executive order (EO 14233) that set up the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. That order gave them 30 days to report. Witt said the results were inconsistent, so they're doing it again to get the numbers right and track them over time.

How much Bitcoin does the US government have?

Nobody official has put out one clean number yet, and that's kind of the story. Crypto Briefing reports estimates from about 198,000 BTC to more than 328,000 BTC. The big gap is mostly about coins tied up in court cases that aren't final yet. Do you count those or not? Depends who's counting.

At about $68,760 a coin, that range works out to roughly $13.6 billion on the low end and over $22.5 billion on the high end. That's a lot of money to keep in a drawer.

Almost all of it came from seizures, not buying. Criminal and civil forfeiture cases, mostly. The executive order says the reserve's Bitcoin isn't supposed to be sold off as routine business. Sales are only allowed in limited cases.

And will the public ever see the exact figure? Witt said that's still undecided.

Could the government buy more?

This is the part crypto Twitter gets excited about, so here's exactly what was said and nothing more. Witt went through the routes that have been discussed:

• Revaluing the government's gold reserves
• Using the Exchange Stabilization Fund
• Converting other assets into Bitcoin
• Accepting Bitcoin for taxes and fees

He said every one of those needs more legal work first, and TokenPost reports there's no consensus yet on how to go ahead. He also said straight buying on the open market raises legal questions. So nothing is approved and no purchase has been announced. It's options on a whiteboard.

If the money side of this is new to you, Broken Money by Lyn Alden explains how government money, gold and Bitcoin fit together in plain words. It helps a lot with stories like this one.

Why it matters right now

Timing. Bitcoin had a rough week. It fell below $70,000 on Friday morning, with a low of $67,555 on Coinbase, the lowest since August 19. ETF money has been leaving for days. So any headline with "government" and "Bitcoin" in it gets passed around fast.

But read it for what it is. This is about safekeeping and counting, not buying. The custody piece is real work, the review is real work, and both are steps that would have to happen before anything bigger could even be talked about. Nothing here puts new money into Bitcoin today.

One thing that does matter for holders long term: the order says the government isn't supposed to routinely dump what it has. People used to worry every time government wallets moved coins around. That worry isn't gone, but there are rules on paper now.

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What to watch

• Whether the Treasury actually publishes the custody framework, and who the outside custodians would be.
• Results of the second holdings review, and whether a total gets made public.
• Any official word on the purchase routes. So far it's all still at the legal analysis stage.

If you want the backstory on how Bitcoin got from a nerd project to something governments keep in reserve, Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper is a good read.

FAQ

Is the US government buying Bitcoin?

Not right now. Possible routes are being studied, but each needs legal analysis and none has been approved.

How much Bitcoin does the US government hold?

Estimates range from about 198,000 to more than 328,000 BTC, depending on whether coins in pending court cases are counted. A second official review is underway.

What is the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve?

A reserve set up by the March 6, 2025 executive order (EO 14233), made up mostly of seized Bitcoin. The order bars routine sales.

This is news, not financial advice.