The Trump administration will announce new details about the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within the “next few weeks,” White House cryptocurrency adviser Patrick Witt said, framing the update as a political milestone and a response to custody after an alleged exploit involving digital assets held by the US Marshals Service.
Speaking at Consensus 2026 in Miami on Wednesday, Witt He said The administration’s work on the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, or SBR, and the separate digital asset stock has been progressing largely out of public view. He noted that the next announcement will focus on “exactly what progress has been made and where we go from here.”
Trump’s Bitcoin reserve is heading towards a new update
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to create the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile, with Bitcoin reserves capitalized by BTC eventually being forfeited to the Treasury through criminal or civil asset forfeiture actions. Non-Bitcoin inventory covers other confiscated digital assets under a separate framework.
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Witt linked the upcoming update directly to a recent security incident. “So, as many people in this room have seen, there has been an exploitation of some assets that were owned by US Marshals just a month or two ago. Obviously we started working on the SBR, the digital asset stockpile, without thinking about that, but obviously thinking that we need to properly secure these assets. So this is a clear example of why the President needed to create the SBR and that he instructed the agencies to take these assets seriously and protect them properly.”
He added that custody of digital assets creates challenges that do not fit well with legacy government asset management procedures. “Custodial is unique for digital assets. So we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress that’s kind of happened in the background and we’ll be making an announcement in the next few weeks, you know, to show exactly what progress has been made and where we’re going from here.”
It appears to be the exploit that Witt referred to Alleged theft linked to John D’Agettaalso known online as “John” or “Lick”. The case became public after blockchain investigator ZachXBT linked the “John/Lick” character to wallets moving funds linked to cryptocurrency addresses controlled by the US government. TRM Labs later said that Deguita was arrested in Saint Martin in a joint operation involving the French Gendarmerie and the FBI, with authorities claiming he stole cryptocurrency from wallets linked to the US Marshals Service.
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According to TRM’s summary, the investigation traced part of the activity to cryptocurrency seized in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack. TRM said approximately $24.9 million of the funds traced came from a wallet controlled by the U.S. government. ZackXBT D’Agetta allegedly stole more than $46 million in seized cryptocurrency assets by misusing access to CMDSS, his father’s company, which held a contract with the US Marshals Service.
Notably, Witt had already previewed the update days ago at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. Speaking to a panel in the Venice resort, he said the administration had spent months working on the legal interpretations needed to protect bitcoin on the government’s balance sheet after… Trump’s executive order. “In the next few weeks, we will make a big announcement,” Witt said there, adding that the administration believes it can take a “big step forward by the executive branch” even before Congress acts.
He also made it clear at Bitcoin 2026 that legislation will still be necessary to secure the policy permanently. This distinction is of central importance: the framework of executive authority may constitute guardianship and administration now, but the legal framework will be difficult for future administration to dissolve from.
At press time, Bitcoin was trading at $81,530.
Featured image created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
