Bitcoin slid beneath the $120,000 mark on Thursday, reaching $118,730 after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the government would not undertake additional bitcoin acquisitions for its strategic reserve.
This move follows a recent all-time high of $124,457 earlier in the day, with the decline attributed directly to Bessent’s comments during a Fox Business interview.
Treasury clarifies bitcoin reserve policy
Bessent clarified that while the US has begun building a bitcoin reserve, the government will not make fresh purchases but will instead rely on confiscated assets. He stated:
“We’ve also started to get into the 21st century, a Bitcoin reserve. We’re not going to be buying that, but we are going to use confiscated assets and continue to build that up.”
This strategy aligns with President Donald Trump’s March executive order establishing both a strategic bitcoin reserve and a separate digital asset stockpile, funded initially with cryptocurrency seized in criminal cases.
US will stop selling seized bitcoin
Despite ruling out new purchases, Bessent confirmed that the government will halt sales of existing bitcoin holdings. He said:
“We’re going to stop selling. I believe that the Bitcoin reserve at today’s prices is somewhere between $15 billion and $20 billion.”
White House adviser David Sacks has echoed this approach, describing the reserve as a “digital Fort Knox” intended to act as a store of value rather than a trading asset.
Market reaction and debt backdrop
Just hours before the announcement, bitcoin briefly surpassed Google’s $2.4 trillion market cap to become the world’s fifth-largest asset.
The pullback reflects fading optimism about government support.
Meanwhile, the US national debt recently exceeded $37 trillion, amplifying investor interest in bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and monetary expansion.
