Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said bitcoin forfeited to the federal government will form the initial holdings of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the program established under President Donald Trump’s March executive order to give the United States a formal stockpile of the digital asset. Bessent added that the Treasury Department is evaluating “budget-neutral” ways to expand the reserve, indicating that any future accumulation of bitcoin would avoid adding to the roughly $37 trillion federal debt. Senator Cynthia Lummis welcomed the initiative but argued that revaluing America’s gold reserves at current market prices could provide the necessary funding more effectively than outright bitcoin purchases. She said she intends to introduce legislation—dubbed the BITCOIN Act—to authorize such a strategy and guide development of the reserve. Industry advocates, including MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, contend the moves signal that Washington is beginning to recognize bitcoin as a Treasury reserve asset, a designation that would represent the cryptocurrency’s most prominent role yet in U.S. fiscal policy.