Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) continues to advocate for the “Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide Act” (BITCOIN Act of 2025), a proposal that would direct the U.S. Treasury to acquire 1 million Bitcoin over five years, approximately 5% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply, as part of a formalized Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Introduced in March 2025, the bill remains under review by the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, with no major hearings or votes scheduled in recent weeks. However, the legislation has resurfaced in market and policy discussions amid ongoing volatility in Bitcoin prices and growing institutional interest in digital assets.
The Acquisition Plan
The core of the BITCOIN Act is a structured purchase program capped at 200,000 Bitcoin per year. The goal is to position the United States as the leading sovereign holder of the asset, treating it as a modern equivalent to traditional strategic reserves like gold or petroleum.Budget-Neutral Funding Through Gold Revaluation
One of the bill’s most distinctive features is its funding mechanism, explicitly designed to avoid adding to the federal deficit or requiring new appropriations. The Federal Reserve currently values its gold certificates at the statutory rate of $42.22 per ounce, a figure unchanged since 1973 and far below current market prices.
The legislation would require the Fed to revalue these certificates to fair market value. The resulting gain, the difference between the old statutory price and the new market rate, would be remitted to the Treasury. These funds would then be used exclusively to finance the Bitcoin acquisitions, making the program “budget neutral” on paper.
Long-Term Bitcoin Holding and Custody Rules
The bill treats the reserve as a strategic, long-term asset rather than a trading vehicle. Acquired Bitcoin must be stored across a network of decentralized, geographically dispersed secure facilities to reduce risks from any single point of failure.
A mandatory 20-year holding period applies, during which the Treasury is prohibited from selling, swapping, or auctioning the assets. The only permitted exception is liquidation to retire outstanding federal debt.
BITCOIN Act: Broader Context and Rationale
Proponents, led by Senator Lummis, argue that Bitcoin represents a critical 21st-century store of value in an increasingly digital global economy. The reserve would help secure U.S. leadership in blockchain technology and protect against competitors accumulating the asset as a hedge against dollar dominance.
Critics, including some fiscal conservatives, contend that revaluing gold certificates amounts to monetary engineering and exposes the national balance sheet to Bitcoin’s well-documented volatility, highlighted by the cryptocurrency’s recent 31% correction from October highs.
While passage remains uncertain, the bill’s persistence underscores a broader shift in Washington toward viewing Bitcoin not merely as a speculative instrument, but as a potential component of national financial strategy.
Chain Street’s Take
The BITCOIN Act may be stalled in committee for now, but its conceptual power is undeniable. By proposing to fund 5% of Bitcoin’s supply through gold revaluation, it forces a profound game-theory question: if the world’s reserve currency issuer starts stacking digital gold, how long before other nations, friendly or rival, feel compelled to follow?
This isn’t immediate buy pressure; it’s a long-term signal that Bitcoin is graduating from fringe asset to treasury-grade contender. The clever accounting masks a bigger truth: even the dollar system is quietly preparing for a multi-polar financial world. Whether the bill passes or not, the debate it sustains validates Bitcoin’s maturation more than any ETF approval ever could.
