type: timeline_event David Sacks, Trump's "AI and Crypto Czar" and a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder, announced in February 2025 that the proposed U.S. sovereign wealth fund could include Bitcoin among its holdings. Sacks stated he was studying the feasibility of a Bitcoin reserve as the White House simultaneously pushed for executive action to create a sovereign wealth fund. Bloomberg reported that Sacks was examining whether the U.S. could establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, with CNBC reporting that Sacks had identified stablecoin legislation as an immediate regulatory priority.
The proposal generated significant controversy because it would constitute an unprecedented use of U.S. government resources to prop up cryptocurrency markets in which Trump and his allies held substantial personal financial interests. Trump had launched the $TRUMP memecoin days before his January 2025 inauguration, his family held significant cryptocurrency assets through World Liberty Financial, and Sacks himself was a major crypto investor. A sovereign wealth fund purchasing Bitcoin would effectively use taxpayer resources to support an asset class in which the administration's senior officials had massive personal stakes.
Trump subsequently signed an executive order directing the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve using bitcoins already seized through federal law enforcement actions, stopping short of directing new purchases of Bitcoin with taxpayer funds—though he left open the possibility of future purchases. The reserve held approximately 200,000 Bitcoin seized from criminal forfeiture cases. Critics noted that any U.S. government action to hold or purchase Bitcoin would boost the price of all cryptocurrency holdings, directly enriching Trump family members, Sacks, and other administration officials with crypto investments. The episode exemplified the extraordinary conflicts of interest created by placing cryptocurrency industry insiders in charge of cryptocurrency regulation and policy.