US Bitcoin Reserve Plan Stalls Over Federal Agency Turf War
Federal agencies are reportedly clashing over who gets control of a potential US Bitcoin reserve, putting the initiative in limbo.
If you thought setting up a national Bitcoin reserve would be as simple as buying some crypto and calling it a day, think again. According to Bloomberg, federal agencies are currently locked in a debate over which of them gets to control a potential US Bitcoin reserve — and that internal tug-of-war is slowing the whole thing down considerably.
This kind of jurisdictional squabbling isn't unusual in Washington, but it's a meaningful hurdle for an initiative that already faces plenty of skeptics. When multiple agencies each believe they have a legitimate claim to oversee something as novel as a government-held Bitcoin reserve, you end up with a bureaucratic standoff that can drag on for months — or longer.
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The debate builds on comments made by White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt back in May, when he acknowledged that the administration was still working through the legal implications of actually creating such a reserve. In other words, the 'how do we even do this legally?' question hadn't been fully answered before the 'who's in charge?' fight broke out.
For everyday crypto watchers, this is a useful reminder that government adoption of Bitcoin moves at government speed — which is to say, slowly and with a lot of meetings. The concept of a strategic Bitcoin reserve has generated enormous buzz in the crypto community, but buzz doesn't pay the bills when agencies are still arguing over turf in conference rooms. Until there's clarity on both the legal framework and the chain of command, the reserve remains more of an ambition than a policy.
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