Key Facts

  • Patrick Witt, who stepped down as executive director of the White House crypto council in October, said President Donald Trump is "interested in" buying Bitcoin for the strategic reserve.

  • Witt said outright open-market purchases are "of questionable legality" and that the administration held back rather than provoke Congress into banning them outright.

  • Speaking before the Nov. 3 midterms, Witt said writing the reserve into law would be "incredibly difficult with a divided Congress."

Patrick Witt, who stepped down as executive director of the White House crypto council in October, said President Donald Trump is "interested in" buying Bitcoin for the strategic reserve.

Witt said outright open-market purchases are "of questionable legality" and that the administration held back rather than provoke Congress into banning them outright.

Speaking before the Nov. 3 midterms, Witt said writing the reserve into law would be "incredibly difficult with a divided Congress."

Bitcoin traded at $73,330 at the time of writing, down about 2% over 24 hours and 12% over the past month.

What Did Trump Say About Buying Bitcoin?

Witt described the barriers as more related to proper authority than appetite.

Different approaches had been discussed, he said, but "it's of questionable legality whether or not there could be outright open market purchases." Moving without clear authority carried its own risk, and that stayed the administration's hand.

"We didn't necessarily want to do something that then had a boomerang effect and led Congress to actually put a rider in the NDAA that says you cannot do this," Witt said, referring to the annual defense authorization bill. "We're trying to get to the place where it is permitted and where the authority is granted, so we didn't want to do anything that jeopardized that."

Why Codifying the Bitcoin Reserve Will Be Hard

Asked whether the reserve could be written into law during the rest of Trump's term, Witt was blunt.

The industry "became and still maintains its association with a political party," Witt said, when it should be a technology issue, leaving him to "struggle to imagine Democrats passing something" of the kind.

That leaves the reserve resting on executive orders, which Witt said a future president could unwind. Repealing a predecessor's orders is "one of the first things they do," he said.