US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve could lose 30% in one ruling as Bitfinex battle intensifies

The US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve could lose nearly 30% of its holdings in a single legal move, even if the government does not sell a single coin. Last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The order directed the Treasury Department to consolidate government-held BTC into a reserve account and promised that the United States would not sell those coins. Yet, the headline number for the reserve may be overstating how much BTC the government can actually treat as a permanent strategic asset. Data from Bitcoin Treasuries estimates that the US government controls about 328,372 BTC. This makes it the world’s largest known state holder. At today’s bitcoin price of about $65,842, that stash is worth roughly $21.6 billion. US Bitcoin Treasury (SourceL Bitcoin Treasuries) However, here is the complication. A large chunk of that US holdings figure includes BTC held by the government, but not cleanly government-owned in the strategic sense. The executive order explicitly allows dispositions pursuant to a court order of a competent jurisdiction. It singles out a specific carve-out for assets that should be returned to identifiable, verifiable victims of crime. That exception matters because roughly 94,643 BTC, about 30% of the government's holdings, is tied to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. If those coins are returned as restitution, the reserve number would fall mechanically to about 234,000 BTC. The reserve number is real, but the ownership question is still open The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is often discussed as if it were a clean, sov