Lummis pushes US Bitcoin reserve plan as 5 nations buy quietly

Senator Cynthia Lummis is pressing Congress to advance the BITCOIN Act before the August recess, warning that failure to codify a federal Bitcoin reserve could leave the US trailing other sovereign buyers who are already accumulating the asset quietly.

"Other countries are buying Bitcoin right now, and they're not announcing it," Lummis, a Wyoming Republican who chairs the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets, said in a recent interview. "The United States should be doing this openly, by law, so the market knows exactly what we're doing and can price it in."

The BITCOIN Act, reintroduced as S.954 on March 11, 2025, would direct the Treasury Department to acquire 1 million Bitcoin over five years — 200,000 coins annually, representing roughly 5 percent of the total supply. The legislation mandates a 20-year minimum holding period, with the Bitcoin stored in decentralized secure vaults across the country that comply with statutory cybersecurity requirements. Lummis has compared the initiative to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which doubled US territory for what proved to be a bargain price.

The push comes as President Donald Trump's January 2025 executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — funded primarily through forfeited crypto assets rather than new appropriations — remains in effect but lacks permanent statutory backing. Lummis's bill would codify that order into law, making it harder for a future administration to reverse course. The senator has also introduced the Mined in America Act, which aims to bolster domestic Bitcoin mining infrastructure to support the proposed reserve.

The CLARITY Act is the nearer-term fight

While the BITCOIN Act represents the longer legislative lift, Lummis is also shepherding the CLARITY Act through the Senate. That bill, which would define the jurisdictional boundary between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over digital assets, advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee in May on a 15-9 vote, drawing support from all Republicans and two Democrats.

The CLARITY Act faces a 60-vote threshold on the Senate floor, and the calendar is tight. Europe already has its Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in force, and global exchanges are adapting to it. If the US fails to pass market structure legislation before the August recess, the next viable window may not open until 2027 — after the new Congress convenes and Lummis herself departs the Senate. She announced in early 2026 that she would not seek re-election, with her term ending in January 2027.

What a federal Bitcoin reserve would mean for markets

If the US government commits to purchasing 1 million Bitcoin on a fixed schedule, that volume represents a structural demand shock for an asset with a capped supply of 21 million coins. A 20-year mandatory holding period removes those coins from circulating supply through multiple market cycles, creating a liquidity constraint that markets tend to price before the purchases are complete.

The concentration risk is equally significant: placing 5 percent of Bitcoin's total supply under government control introduces a variable that decentralization advocates may find uncomfortable, even if the vaults are distributed geographically. Sovereign buyers including El Salvador have already adopted Bitcoin into national policy, but US accumulation carries a fundamentally different weight in global markets. Traders are watching the legislative calendar closely — not because the bill is guaranteed to pass, but because the signal of credible sovereign demand often moves prices before any coin changes hands.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.